The Day of Atonement

Lisbon, 1755. Sebastião Raposa returns to Portugal under the English identity Sebastian Foxx, ten years after the Inquisition imprisoned his New Christian parents and forced him into exile. Trained in London by Benjamin Weaver, he intends to punish the inquisitor Pedro Azinheiro, but his plans become entangled with English merchants, former friends and families still living under the threat of denunciation and confiscation.

The earthquake of 1 November destroys much of Lisbon and turns a calculated campaign of revenge into a struggle through fire, collapsing buildings, disorder and mass displacement. As Sebastião attempts to rescue allies and confront those responsible for his family’s destruction, the novel contrasts blood vengeance with mercy and shows how religious persecution, commercial rivalry and catastrophe expose the precarious position of Portugal’s converted Jewish population.