Published: Feb. 16, 2010
Words: 126,284 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781452310794

Short description

In 13th-century Sussex, an illicit love-affair and ruthless power-politics find focus in a masterwork of medieval engineering.

Extended description

The setting is feudal Sussex in the thirteenth century, a landscape and society that have changed almost beyond recognition. The power of the Church is at its zenith; yet the King, ruling by divine right, is sovereign, above all.

Ralf Grigg is the young son of a master carpenter whose business fails when Ralf is small. The family have come to live in the seaside village of Mape, where Ralf’s mother was born.

Ralf’s solitary evening walk along the sea-wall is interrupted by the distant sight of someone - a boy of about his own age - trapped in the mud of the saltmarshes. The tide is flooding. There is no time to fetch help.

The decision Ralf makes in that moment has profound and far-reaching consequences, not only for himself and his whole family, but for the lord of the manor, his sovereign, and the ruthless struggle for supremacy between Westminster and Rome.

Extent: 125,773 words (about 419 conventional pages)

Tags

historical fiction, politics, engineering, medieval, medieval england

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Reviews

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Review by: C S McClellan on Feb. 24, 2012 :
If you love historical fiction, you need to acquaint yourself with Richard Herley. His novels are not only rich in detail, they're beautifully written. His descriptions draw you in with the sounds, scents, and views of an often wild and unfriendly, but beautiful world. His nature isn't a passive thing that you merely look at. It's active and engaging, and always very much a part of the story. When he writes about a flock of seabirds swooping over the water, you can see and hear them.

His descriptions of manual skills and handcrafts, often of another time and place are thoroughly convincing and contribute to the feeling of authenticity about the periods he writes about. I think his knowledge must be based as much on his own skills as on research.

The heart of The Tide Mill is about the intersection of the lives of serfs, free men, and nobles. Characters defy their ordained destinies, suffer the consequences, or reap the rewards. Nothing about this life is easy, even for the highborn, who have to balance the opposing demands of their king and the church. The characters struggle against each other, and against nature, mostly in the form of the sea that edges the village. Most of all, they struggle against themselves. Two threads wind through the story, the forbidden love of two people from different social classes, and the construction of a new kind of mill that attracts the greedy attention of the Church.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Ben Thornton on Aug. 30, 2010 :
Another superb novel from Richard Herley, bringing the 13th century to life in extraordinary detail. Who would have thought that building a mill could be exciting? But I couldn't put it down!
(reviewed long after purchase)

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