The Raven’s Head

by Karen Maitland

First published 2015

Amazon

4.1(512)

France, 1224. Vincent, an ambitious apprentice scribe, tries to blackmail his master and is forced to flee with a carved silver raven’s head covered in mysterious symbols. Hoping to sell it in England, he instead discovers that the object draws him towards Lord Sylvain, an alchemist whose experiments have more dangerous aims than the making of gold.

In Norfolk, Gisa, an apothecary’s niece, and the boy Wilky are caught in the same web of secrecy, religious discipline and forbidden experiment. Their stories converge around alchemy, the White Canons and a pursuit of knowledge that treats human lives as material, blurring the line between medieval science, superstition and the supernatural.