HarperCollins
February 2002
On Sale: February 4, 2002
Featuring: Alys; Hugo; Catherine
640 pages ISBN: 0006514642 EAN: 9780006514640 Trade Size Add to Wish List
"In my dreams I smelled the dark sulfurous stink of a
passing witch and pulled up the coarse blanket over my head
and whispered "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us," to
shield me from my nightmare of terror. Then I heard shouting
and the terrifying crackle of flames and I came awake in a
rush of panic..."
From its mesmerizing opening scene, The Wise Woman is
an extraordinary feat of storytelling. Set in Henry VIII's
England, it is a haunting story of power and loss, love and
betrayal...of one woman's struggle to survive in a man's
world, and of the dark thrilling forces of magic that beckon
her. At its center is Alys, a complex and fascinating
creation -- a cleaver and ambitious young witch, granted
powers she never wanted and doomed to desire a man who would
very well destroy her.
On the night that the soldiers burn and sack the abbey that
has been her refuge, there is only one place for Alys to go
- the cold wretched hovel that is the home of the wise woman
Morach. As a child, Alys eagerly learned Morach's ways of
country healing, but now, despising the grinding poverty and
frightened by Morach's black arts, Alys years for escape. As
if in dark answer to her prayers, she is summoned to the
castle to treat the ailing, old Lord Hugh.
Amid the lavish world of the court -- a seductive maelstrom
of excitement, temptation, and danger -- Alys comes face to
face with the handsome young Lord Hugo. It was Hugo who
sacked the abbey...and everywhere she turn, he is there, his
joyful smile cutting through her like lightening.
But Hugo has a wife, the voluptuous barren Catherine, who
watches Alys with shrewd suspicion and would not hesitate to
accuse her of witchcraft. powerless to deny her furious,
unbidden desire and desperate to control her own destiny,
Alys makes a reckless grab for power, position, wealth, and
safety. Unleashing the dark forces quivering within her, she
calls upon all the powers of sex and magic to lure Hugo into
an ecstasy he never imagined...
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