The sixteen days of the Peasant's Revolt, when new versions of England were born under the charismatic leader Wat Tyler, brought to life in a dazzlingly inventive novel by the author of The Manningtree Witches.
The sixteen days of the Peasant's Revolt, when new versions of England were born under the charismatic leader Wat Tyler, brought to life in a dazzlingly inventive novel by the author of The Manningtree Witches. It is 1381. England, reeling from plague and years of conflict abroad, is a tinderbox waiting to spark. Two childhood friends ride into the town of Brentwood, Essex, where they come upon an altercation with a local Justice bent on squeezing more coin from the masses. Thus begins a rebellion of the common folk - loyal to the king, but not to those wealthy landowners who curtail their freedoms; the multitude finding cause against the powers that threaten their livelihoods. Set over sixteen days, Doom Painting roves across England as the revolt grows and swells and the rebels march to London to take their demands to the child-king Richard II. Out of the rebellion emerges its enigmatic and charismatic leader Wat Tyler, an opportunistic and mercurial rogue whose morality is birthed by the cause, and who shapes an identity for the English which has never been lost. A. K. Blakemore's thrilling retelling of the Peasants' Revolt renders it a definitive moment in British history. In the meeting of peasantry and nobility, new versions of England are born, and - for one bloody summer - the people of England seize control.
"One of our most exciting historical novelists takes on the peasants' revolt, in a blow-by-blow account of unlikely leader Wat Tyler and the 16 days in 1381 that turned England upside down. With cinematic action and a relish for medieval vocabulary, it's a punky successor to Hilary Mantel" - Guardian
"Exquisite and urgent, Doom Painting is so much more than historical fiction. It captures within its pages both the rebelliousness of the fourteenth century and the urgent spirit of our Age... An exceptional work that everyone should read, no matter whether they consider themselves more entranced by England's past or ambitious for its future" - author of The King’s Mother
"[Blakemore's] prose has the strange, sensual specificity her readers know to expect. This medieval England feels lived in rather than researched. An ambitious, intricate novel running to nearly 700 pages, worth every last one of them" - Bookseller
"A.K. Blakemore is developing a reputation for turning bizarre historical events into beautiful novels... Her latest is set during the Peasants' Revolt, and looks to be whip-smart and poetic at once" - Telegraph
"Her most ambitious historical novel yet... Doom Painting unfolds hour by thrilling hour, across 16 turbulent days and 672 pages, to tell the story of how one Essex boy rose to lead a ramshackle peasant army of thousands in protest against unfair taxation in a country that had not long survived the Black Death" - Bookseller
"An extraordinary young storyteller and a terrific stylist" - Telegraph
"Brave, unique and sometimes startlingly beautiful... Worth every second" - Times Literary Supplement
"Inventive" - Country & Town House