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Beautiful writing, historical set-pieces, and a complex, powerful heroine - Hild is right up my alley in terms of subject matter and content. Nicola Griffith imagines the world of St. Hilda prior to her canonization in the Catholic Church; she spends her time artfully filling in the void (Hilda's childhood, youth, early womanhood) that was left in the Venerable Bede's history with breathtaking imagery and painstaking attention to detail. And what a character she creates. Following Hild from a young age, Griffith pulls back the curtain on the possibilities of what life at court may have looked like in ancient England (prior to the Norman conquest). Following her father's murder, Hild is vaulted into the dangerous position of the King's seer by her brilliant, plotting mother, Breguswith, at a young age. While she works to fulfill her prophecy as "the light of the world," Hild knows that her life constantly hangs in a delicate balance of royal politics, timing, and temperament. She negotiates her uncle Edwin's whims using deft strategizing - through Griffith, Hild is imagined less as a mystic and more as a practical, observant, wickedly sharp young woman who knows how to tell a mercurial king what he wants to hear. Hild also must navigate the gender and sexual politics of her age, and does so by completely standing apart - she's physically taller than most men; practices hand-to-hand combat; and chosen to act as "the King's fist" in times of trial. In many ways, Griffith writes Hild as a gender-fluid character who defied most conventions of her time through her sheer will and intelligence. When Christianity comes to court (via Edwin's converted wife Aethelburh of Kent), Hild's world shifts again - now she must contend not only with her king's fears and desires, but with the politics of a new, upstart church that views her role as blasphemy. Griffith does a masterful job of giving St. Hilda of Whitby (patron of learning, culture, and poetry; converter of the Angles and Saxons) a real history and past as an exceptional young woman surviving in extraordinary ways during a most uncertain time. The world needs more heroines as well written as Griffith's Hild.