IN SUPPORT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"... Having enjoyed the previous book (The Templar’s Garden), I find Isabella a very likeable and vital character. She has convincing religious visions, including the heretical suggestion that God could be female... Clover also has the knack of crafting a propulsive plot, full of movement and incident. Recommended.

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Ben Bergonzi

Historical Novel Society 

 

"The Queen of Heaven ... A brief sojourn in Oxford, disguised as a man, is the prelude to a remarkable trip around Europe, involving all manner of intrigues and atmospherics, compellingly told and historically freighted to a wonderful degree... Henry VI’s reign hovers over the narrative and is an essential part of the structure. The broader propulsive twist is whether Lady Isabelle can survive it. One to lose yourself to on the cold winter nights ahead, perhaps to the accompaniment of Like as a Hart..."

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Dr Richard Lofthouse 

Editor,  QUAD, University of Oxford Alumni Newsletter

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"...Clover's world is so vivid, nuanced and historically well informed, and the narrative voice of her protagonist, Lady Isabelle  d'Albret Courteault, uncannily authentic. Unusually, here is also a book where choral polyphony swirls and echoes through the pages, specifically Ockeghem’s sublime setting of Psalm 42.   This is a great debut, and the reward is doubled if you pair the book with the Choir of New College, Oxford’s  CD  Like as the Hart.  Singing doesn’t get much better than this! Both book and CD will remain with me like a cloth of gold."

 

Benedict Warren 

Assistant Producer,  BBC Symphony Orchestra

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“… I’ve just read a new novel by Catherine Clover called The Templar’s Garden, which comes with an accompanying CD, .... I loved the novel, narrated in the first person by a medieval damsel called Lady Isabelle and set in the 1400s in castles and monasteries, and I’m addicted to the CD, sung by New College Choir... More CDs to accompany books, please. A walking guide of Germany, perhaps, with accompanying Bach cantatas?”

 

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Author of British Summer Time Begins and Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding-Schools

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