The Mercies: The Bestselling Richard and Judy Book Club Pick Paperback – 8 July 2021
Kiran Millwood Hargrave . Pan Macmillan UK . English
The Sunday Times bestseller and BBC radio 2 book club pick 2020 ‘chilling and page-turning’ - The times ‘dark, dramatic and full of danger’ - daily Mail ‘gripping’ - Madeline Miller ‘took My breath away’ - Tracy chevalier the storm comes in like a finger SNAP. Winter, 1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of vardø is thrown into a vicious storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of the island, out fishing, perish in an instant. Vardø is now a place of women. Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom cornet has been summoned to bring the women of the island to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In her new home, and in Maren, Ursa encounters something she has never seen before: independent women. But where Ursa finds happiness, even love, absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs. For readers of circe and the handmaid’s t 100 106k 0 106k 0 0 81463 0 --:--:-- 0:00:01 --:--:-- 81462ale, Kiran Millwood hargrave's the mercies is a story about how suspicion can twist its way through a community, and about a love that could prove as dangerous as it is powerful. ‘A beautifully intimate story of friendship, love and hope’ - Douglas Stuart, author of shuggie Bain ‘strong characters, gorgeous settings’ - Sarah moss, guardian ‘something rare and beautiful’ - Marian Keyes.
Categories: Action & Adventure
About the Author
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an award-winning writer whose work has been translated into over 30 languages and optioned for stage and screen. Almost Life, her third novel for adults, will be published by Picador (UK) and Summit (US) in March 2026. Her debut adult novel The Mercies debuted at number one of the The Times bestseller list, was a top-ten Sunday Times bestseller, and was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club and the Richard and Judy Summer Reads. It was a finalist for the prestigious Prix Femina in France, won a Betty Trask Award, and was called 'unquestionably the book of the 2018 London Book Fair' by The Bookseller. The Dance Tree was shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award and picked for the BBC Two Between Two Covers Book Club, as well as Florence + the Machine's Between Two Books Book Club. Between them, her children's books have won numerous awards including the Wainwright Prize, Children's Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Historical Association Young Quills Award, and the Blackwell's Children's Book of the Year. They have been shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize, the Barnes and Noble Award, Jhalak Prize, the Little Rebels Prize, the Branford Boase Award, the Blue Peter Best Story Award, Costa Children's Book Prize, Foyles' Children's Book of the Year, and thrice-longlisted for the Carnegie Award. Kiran lives in Oxford with her husband, the artist Tom de Freston, their daughter, cats, and usually a litter of foster kittens.
