The Pretender
Author: Jo Harkin
ISBN: 9781526678348
Subjects: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Historical, Renaissance,
Published year: 2025
Binding: Unknown
Description: <p><b>**Selected as a book of summer 2025 by the <i>Guardian</i>, <i>Daily Mail</i>, <i>Sunday Times</i> and <i>i paper</i>**</b><br> <br> <b><i>Wolf Hall</i> meets <i>Demon Copperhead</i> in a sharply ambitious, brilliantly imagined and hugely entertaining story of intrigue, deceit, revenge and ambition</b><br> <b><br> 'An absolute delight ... Funny, moving, filthy and original ... A frontrunner for historical fiction book of the year' <i>The Times</i></b><br> <b>'A bold and brilliant comedy of royal intrigue' <i>Guardian</i>, Book of the day</b><b><br> 'A vivid, transporting feat of imagination' Maggie Shipstead</b><br> <b>'Witty, poignant, wildly engaging, and with a huge heart - I loved it' Sarah Waters<br></b><b>'</b><b>Brilliantly buoyant, clever, funny, original, vivid, witty</b><b>' Joanna Quinn</b><b><br> '<i>The Pretender</i> has everything: history richly drawn, amazing characterisation, humour, wit, vigour and bravery' Emma Stonex</b><br> <b>'Funny and devastating. I'm having a fantastic time reading it' Yael van der Wouden</b><br> <br> <i>________________________________________</i><br> <i><br> Kill the pretender. Do not let it be known that there was a pretender to kill.<br> <br></i>The year is 1483 and England is in peril. The much-despised Richard III is not long for the throne, and the man who will become Henry VII stands poised to snatch the crown for himself. But for twelve-year-old John Collan, living in a remote village with his widowed father, these matters seem far away.<br> <br> But history has other plans for John.<br> <br> Stolen from his family, exiled - first to Oxford, then to Burgundy, and then Ireland - and apprenticed to a series of unscrupulous political operators, he finds himself groomed for power; not as John Collan, but as Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick - and rightful heir to the throne.<br> <br> Far from home at the Irish court, preparing for a war that will see him become king or die trying, John has just his wits - and the slippery counsel of his host's daughter, the unconventional Joan - to navigate the choppy waters ahead.<br> <br> <b>Seething with revenge and machination, sparkling with wit and humanity, and roaring with adventure and bravado, <i>The Pretender</i> is the captivating true story of a young man tossed into the chaos of history as it happens.</b><br> <br> <b>'Wickedly funny... A work of genius, a wellspring of laughter and sorrow, a feat of time travel, and a feast of language' Karen Russell</b><br> <b>'Raw, beautiful and true ... I loved it' Leah Redmond Chang</b><br> <b>'An absolute thumper ... Funny and filthy and brave and brilliant' Marianne Levy</b><br> <b>'Superb, exhilarating and heartbreaking' Linda Porter</b><br> <b>'I couldn't put it down' Tracy Borman</b></p>
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