I've been a history junkie all my life, and that extends to historical fiction. And because my undergrad degree was heavy on late classical and early medieval Europe, I really enjoy a good novel set in that period. (Cecelia Holland is one of my favorite novelists for that reason.) All of which is to say that I really, really wanted to love _Hild_, the fictionalized early life of the 7th century Hild Yffing, who became St. Hilda of Whitby, and the earlier book to which this one is a sequel and continuation. But it was a real struggle to get through that one, it took me several times as long as usual, and it was ultimately a disappointment.

The second volume, unfortunately, suffers many of the same problems as the first. A successful author of historical fiction will have learned several lessons early on. The most obvious one is “Don't make things up that are contradicted by the historical record,” and at least that's not a problem here. But the second one is “Don't show off your research with data dumps,” and that is rather a problem. The thing is that few of Griffith's readers will have any experience at all of the complex tangle of little kingdoms of the 650s in the north of England, and being thrown into the midst of it just adds to the reader's load. Griffith also has a habit of using admittedly authentic period idiom and place names, but she does it so much that it drags the narrative down to a crawl and confuses the reader. Hild, for example, is a hæges and godmouth, as well as oath-keeper to her spearmen – but we're never really told what any of those mean, or the social and political roles they imply.

Hild was the niece of King Edwin of Northumbria and the series is heavy on the politics between Edwin and the rival state of Elmet, in what is now Yorkshire, and also on the Christianization of the North, which began with Edwin's conversion (he married a Christian princess) when Hild was thirteen. She had already come to note by her ability to foretell coming events. Not much is known of her early life so Griffith fills in the gaps by having the bright, headstrong girl train in arms (which almost certainly could not have happened), as well as developing into a shrewd advisor to the powerful. Now Edwin has just created her Lady of Elmet, which she will have to defend against her jealous kinsman and neighbor, Osric, Lord of Craven. She and her new husband, Cian (who is also her half-brother) will be responsible for holding all of Southern Northumbria for Edwin. Which means skirmishes in which Hild wields her long lance to effect -- and which also just doesn’t sound like the sort of woman who would go on to become abbess of several religious institutions, ending with Whitby, where she hosted the famous Synod.

All of that is covered in the first hundred pages, which are very slow-paced, and it took me several days to get that far because I had to keep pausing to reread paragraphs to try to understand what was being said. And this thing runs more than nine hundred pages. I hate to admit it but I threw in the towel at that point. Life is too short for that kind of struggle.

This book is absolutely rich with detail and descriptions. Ms. Griffith demonstrates the importance of making those details a necessary component of the story. She shows the connections among things we may not see. From teaching children geography in the dirt with sticks and stones to using that knowledge to accomplish a goal, no detail is too small. Every character is well developed, locations are marvelously described, and the plot is engaging. This is a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it.

Menewood by Nicola Griffith, book 2 in the Hild Sequence, is filled with drama, fantasy, survival, heartbreak and more. If you enjoyed the first book, you would definitely enjoy reading this one. Historical fiction (this one set in 7th century Britian) at its best. The complexities of the Hild’s character have you hoping the story will never end. Look forward to the third book in the series. One thing to note: you can read this as a standalone, but it will make more sense if you read the first book before this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

The adjectives are lining up: Lush, Large, Limpid, Epic, Immersive, Magnificent. But first a touch of summary: Menewood takes up the story of the barely-known 7th C British saint Hild (patron saint of education and learning) from where author Nicola Griffith left her at the end of the wonderful novel, Hild. Now 18, Hild is married, and still in the boiling center of political upheaval and intrigue in northern Britain.

I loved the first novel and have nursed hope that we would continue along with Griffith's imaginative journey, so I dove into the story without a backward glance. Three days of reading the eARC, I noticed that I was only 15% through the book. A quick look at the publisher's page and I felt a zing of joy: at 750 pages, I could hope to be inside this beautifully rendered 7th C Britain, with place-names and social conventions and gustatory delights that were as foreign to me as any science fiction for a good long time.

The novel combines extraordinary characters –– Hild is a brilliant tactician, literally larger than life, but also as human as the next warrior as she schemes to shelter her people and gather a war-band to ensure that safety –– with extraordinary research that grounds the story in the rocky, far-off soil of Bernicia and Deira in 632.

There's a glossary that explains that Meadmonath is July, and that midniht is the time from midnight to 3am, that a wealh means a stranger, and that wyrd means a specific sort of fate, but the world is so fully fleshed that I chose to let the context lead me to understanding. A wealh myself plunked into the middle of the very busy story, I was swept into Hild's struggles with warring kings and dangerous allegiances, her savage battles and heartbreaking losses, and the devastation of war on home turf.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's a gorgeous, fully transportive chunk of fiction. I think it's going to be remembered as a masterpiece, and I hope to see people lugging it around everywhere for the next few years. Thank you Nicola Griffith!

Also, thanks to NetGalley and publisher Farrar Straus & Giroux for the free eARC in exchange for my unfettered opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

Wow. Just wow.

This is everything I could have wanted in a history-inspired fantasy. The level of detail and attention to the history of this place and time is extraordinary and led me down so many rabbit holes of reading up on the era (which is something I love when a book does). Beautiful writing and characters too.

"In the much anticipated sequel to Hild, Nicola Griffith's Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change.

Making a much-anticipated return to the world of Hild, Nicola Griffith's Menewood transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking's court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is eighteen, honed and tested, the formidable lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood.

But old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at Edwin's heels. War is brewing - bitter war, winter war. Not knowing whom to trust, Edwin becomes volatile and recalls his young advisor to court. There Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead - and realizes she must find a way to navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people.

She will face the losses and devastation of total war, and then must summon the determination to forge a radically different path for herself and her people. In the valley, her last redoubt, Hild draws strength from the fierce joy she finds in the natural world, as, slowly, her community takes root. She trains herself and her unexpected allies in new ways of thinking, learning what it means to gather and wield true power. And she prepares for one last wager: risking all on a single throw for a better future.

In the last decade, Hild has become a beloved classic of epic storytelling. Menewood exceeds it in every way."

I mean, we've all been "patiently" waiting for this book yes?

Review will be posted here on 12-Oct-23: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/10/review-menewood-by-nicola-griffith.html

Hild was unexpected and beautiful. If you haven't read it, it's a fictionalised telling of the early life of Hild(a) of Whitby - a woman born in the 7th century CE to a Deiran royal household (an early British kingdom based in the north-east, around modern York) who went from pagan to Christian to abbess to sainthood, and was the founder of the monastery at Whitby, where the Synod of Whitby (which codified the British approach to the date of Easter, and their alignment with the Roman rather than Celtic churches) was held. Hild details her young life in the royal court of her uncle Edwin, King of Northumbria, and her struggle to find a place there. It casts her as someone particularly capable of reading into the patterns she observes in the world, whether they be in nature or in the actions of people, and who, prompted by her mother, uses this ability to be viewed as a quasi-mystical seer, helping guide the king's actions through a tumultuous period of history, both politically and religiously.

Some of Hild's impact is simply through how unexpected it is - there is a breathtaking level of immersion into the world of 7th century Northumbria, and into the worldview of a particularly astute and thoughtful girl who might live in it. It's a novel you leave somewhat dazed and dazzled, suffering from the whiplash of returning to modernity after a viewpoint so seamlessly portrayed and inhabited. And that can be a difficult thing to follow. The bar has been set high, the setting, the writing, the visuals and immersion are all known, and there's always a risk that, when known, they become that much less impressive.

Luckily, it's been written by Nicola Griffith, and so she's not only avoided this problem entirely, but somehow managed to deliver an even more stunning sequel to an already stunning book.

Menewood is a book about many things - womanhood, motherhood, the price of power, living in an everchanging world, survival, will, and simply the world of 7th century Northumbria. It encompasses a huge portion of life, of a whole worldview of a person, and manages to do so seamlessly, artfully and deftly at every single turn. It takes you through intensely traumatic events, both personal and political, and makes you view them as a human would, in all their detail and cost and chaos, in all the things someone would need to survive them, and what that survival would cost. The story is humanly told, and manages to make comprehensible and engaging a fairly complex and less-known piece of history, in a way that feels genuinely readable, without sacrificing that complexity or the realities of the world for the sake of modern readership.

Which is to say the plot, however predictably based in real historical events, nevertheless manages to suck you in, and remains just as great as its predecessor.

However, the plot is not what I want to talk about, when I think about what makes this book stands out for me, good as it is. There are four strands of the weave I think really demonstrate what a thoroughly skilfully told novel this is, and why it stands out amongst its peers, and it's those I want to highlight instead.

Firstly, and most prominently throughout the story - the worldbuilding.

A thing you quite often see in less well-told historical fiction is the author's need to show off that they know something that doesn't really fit into the story, but it's a neat fact that just had to be crammed in somehow, because they did all this research and so it needs to be put on the page. And then that multiplied across the story, until you are constantly being elbow-nudged about yes, this is a historical work. Griffith manages the opposite of that.

When you pause to thing, to examine a phrase even, you realise just how much work, how much research, how much thinking has gone into crafting 7th century Northumbria in a way the reader can truly be immersed in. On examination, it's there to see. But in the moment of reading, it is invisible, or subtle, or offhand. It's never the focus, but it is absolutely the lens, and when you begin to realise just how much there is of it, you realise what a marvel of a book this is.

Offhand remarks, are icebergs of worldbuilding:

Every man in the hall wept openly; most of the women were dry-eyed.

This is a cultural context where the act of showing emotion is read and performed differently than in modern Britain. It's a single line, and the story moves on, but it leaves us with a little nugget of information, and doesn't feel the need to explain it to us. The reader is trusted to draw their conclusions, to think about how a world might look different when this is true, compared to our own.

Then, to take a more overt example - the way Griffith incorporates period language (or period-seeming language) into not just the dialogue, but the text itself. The months are given unfamiliar names - like Hrethmonath - but because the descriptions of the world are always rooted in the physical, in the constant turning of the seasons and the work they demand, it is never unclear when in the year each event takes place. But it stretches deeper than this - plants, animals, places, people, so many things in the world take on names that embed them into setting, and doubly so when Griffith consciously evokes the multilinguality of 7th century Britain. Hild herself speaks several languages, and how she names certain things, and in which tongue, is a subtle insight into how the sociocultural groups of her world interact with it and each other. And of course, which language she chooses to speak, and to whom. There is a constant fluidity to Hild's world, a need to shift modes of thought and communication to suit her environment in a way that many modern Anglophones are quite unfamiliar with, and it is such a good grounding for the realities of the setting. She may speak Anglisc to her uncle, and to his court, and when she wishes to appear formal and full of power, but then she'll shift to British to speak to her family, or when she thinks about a bird in the sky, how its flight tells her the frost will come early this year.

Which leads us on to our second strand - Hild's gaze, and the natural world that shapes and informs it at every turn, and the language used to describe it all so vividly.

As a modern, metropolitan reader, my connection with the natural world is tenuous at best. I can name wildflowers and trees, I am happy walking in a forest along clear trails, and I enjoy being in boats and seeing wildlife. I even like camping. But that's... the extent of it. I can enjoy it, but my knowledge of the natural world around me is superficial at best, and limited by the constraints the modern world imposes on the natural.

Hild, by contrast, is written as someone who not only lives in a world much closer to the natural than the one I see, but reads it as easily as living in it. Like so:

The rain started at Beal, and the oaks on either bank stood bare and mournful. The scent of spring dirt struck a chord and, just like that, between one bend of the river and another, she was inside the scents and sounds of home. Elmet, where she was born and where she belonged. This was the heart of home, the place that sang to her in her dreams, where she could name the dirt between her fingers, greet the give of grass under her feet, know the flirr and flit of feathers between the trees. But surrounding the lift in her heart, holding in check the rising joy under her breastbone, she felt watchful. There were no bright cuts of recent pruning. On an inside curve of the river a bittern, nesting in a reed bed, boomed at them. She had never seen a bittern so close to this usually busy stretch of river. And the river itself ran very clear.

At so many points in the story, the world turns on her familiarity with the details that seem small to us but are all part of the pattern for her - a bird out of place, a river running clean, trees unpruned. Hild is meant to be remarkable in her affinity for finding these patterns, it is part of her character, but the way Griffith weaves it into the text makes it so believable, so bounded by the life her character would have led that of course someone like Hild could be like this. It's not miraculous, except in how it is used, filtered through Hild's intelligence and thoughtfulness into something sharp and useful. It is simply someone accustomed to a different world and its rhythms, attuned to it, and reading it.

But even beyond that, the way she reads it, constantly imbued with admiration, with beauty and crystal clarity, makes it an incredibly immersive world - and worldview - to inhabit. Griffith draws on the mores of old English poetry in her use of alliteration and repetition, but gives it all a beauty apparent to the modern reader. There are so many charming phrases littered through the book that I felt the need to jot down while reading - gleaming and glittering in the glorious gear of war - and when these are turned to nature, Hild's dearest love that underpins all, and paired with a deft ear for the onomatopeia of wild things, they become almost holy, and wholly present for the reader.

Don't let this fool you into thinking it's a tranquil, pastoral book, though. Just like its predecessor, Menewood is a story that turns on the inherent chaos and instability of the world in which Hild lives. At the time - and this is something Griffith takes great pains to make plain in Menewood particularly - so much of the stability of the world was invested in the king. Not the institute of kingship, not the apparatus of governance, but a single man and his personal relationship with power and those around him. When he dies, the world is tipped to chaos and a new king must make it all anew - or not. Menewood is, in part, a story of the fragility of that world, and the awareness of those who live in it of how precarious it all can be. And this is the third part of what the book does so well - it makes you truly see this, without ever bludgeoning you over the head with it. Griffith eschews long tracts of exposition, but the information comes through all the same. We see the growing hunger of those outside and apart from the throne of Edwin king, we see Hild's growing awareness of what might come, of what she might prevent, and what suffering it might bring her. She lives in a world poised on the edge of the precipice, and she must seek to have those she loves survive it, even if she cannot stop it.

But - and this is the fourth part, and perhaps the most subtle but satisfying - it's also a book full of awareness of change that's coming, that will wipe away much of that chaos. Underpinning all of the rest of the book - quietly, constantly - is the knowledge of the waxing and waning of religious change coming to Hild and her people, and all that the growth of Christianity brings with it. Because for Hild, it brings writing. It brinks agreements of the "boc" - things written down that endure beyond the rise and fall of one man as king, so long as the church survives to hold men to them. We, the reader, know how the story ultimately ends. Christianity adopted, Hild an abbess. This is history. But Griffith manages to make that inevitabilty dynamic nonetheless, makes it feel less than certain. And the way she showcases the different ways the people in that world approached and related to their faith or faiths, what it meant to them, what it meant to kings, what it meant to politics, is as clever as it is subtle, integrated as it is with the far more overt parts of the story. People convert, but they don't always understand. Sometimes they're forced. Sometimes they shift back to their old religion. Their faith may tie them together with allies, or they may be enemies regardless of it. And Griffith makes us truly see that, truly be situated in a world of such changing forces on all sides, but where just ahead, on the horizon, visible to someone with a mind for pattern and prediction like Hild, we see too the growing spectre of the sort of change that changes everything.

And part of that is our proximity to Hild's own faith, which is an interesting mix of the devout and the pragmatic. It's a tragedy of history that most people see people in the past as either stupid or mystical geniuses, but never in between, as people capable of the same sort of thought (and lack thereof) as we are now. But in Hild, in her faith, we see someone grappling with such a relatable struggle, in an alien context, and Griffith has managed to find that perfect medium of humanity without denying its historical context.

Menewood is a fantastic sequel to Hild. It's rare for a second book in a trilogy to eclipse the first, or even equal it, but it feels like Griffith has done just that here. It's a novel full of paradox - present, relatable humanity against a true immersion in a historical context; a lens of the natural world used to make plain the most human of problems; an intimate character portrait and a wideview lens on the politics of a whole kingdom - but it never falters, drawing it all together into a seamless whole with an ease and grace that belies how truly deep it feels, when you pause to scratch the surface. It is a book about a strange, singular woman, and her view on the world around her, and it is a marvel.

Nicola Griffith has done it again. A stupendous sequel to her incredible Hild. Admittedly there were far more characters and oddly spelled names than I could follow, but it DID NOT MATTER. The story itself, and her beautiful prose made the novel totally engrossing and delicious. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction and strong female protagonists.

If you enjoyed the beautifully written and totally immersive Hild, you will love this.

A detailed story of survival, heartbreak, and quiet little wonders amidst a background of danger and political intrigue. It illuminates the incredible damage that war can do, its various struggles bleeding onto ancient roads that have already seen too much.

A tale that stuck with me, and one I wholly recommend.
ARC acquired via NetGalley.

I’m working through this book. It is intriguing, but there are a lot of challenging names and unique words for the world. I’m finding it challenging.

I read a review copy thanks to NetGalley.

The waiting was well-worth this lovely, beautiful, utterly moving wonder of a novel. Hild was one of my favourite reads of the year ten years ago, and the sequel surpasses it with its scope and terror and, sorry to repeat myself, sheer beauty. The novel covers a few years in Hild's life - a tumultous time of change and upheaval for both her and Britain. Hild must survive great losses and setbacks and emerges older, wiser, more experienced.

There is much story here, but I don't wish to spoil it (history provides some pointers as to what one may expect anyway). What I want to praise, instead, is Griffith's astonishing perfectionist attention to detail and loving crafting of Hild's world. I loved the relationships between characters, but I loved their ways of being in the world even more. The work they do, the environment they shape and that shapes them. The plants, the animals, the technologies, the ways bodies feel when hurt. All of this is written with such skill and beauty.

And then there's the alliterative, beautiful language that made me gasp even when what was being written about was so tragic that I wanted to cry (I cried on the tram at one point).

Highest possible recommendation.

I didn't want Menewood to end. I wanted to stay with Hild, out in the wind, looking at the world and knowing things. This is a gorgeous book, detailed and sensuous and raw and painful and strong and full of life everywhere. It follows Hild over a short period of time as she moves through various roles, always seeking ways to keep her people and lands safe, always thinking and considering and observing. It's a long read, yes, but every single word pulls its weight as Griffith draws the reader into 7th-century Britain; the language is fascinating, and the way description is worked in is perfectly fashioned. My summer plans include re-reading Hild and then immediately following it with a re-read of Menewood.

There are a few typos: I caught "food" for "fool," and "Leofdag" for "Leofdaeg." Towards the end of the book, the long i mark is missing from words like "wīc" and "scōp."

This is a kick-butt historical fiction - coming of age . The characters are loveable and the plot intense and engaginh. Overall an excellent reading experience.

Menewood by Nicola Griffith is an excellent historical fiction that has action, drama, elements of fantasy, and a strong cast of characters that had me swept away from the first page.

This is the sequel to Hild and is the second book in The Light of the World trilogy. While one does not have to read the first book, it really should be read to fully appreciate where this story begins and the background of the characters.

The maps of seventh century lands and the family tree at the beginning of the book really help with a point of reference for the readers. The author’s note of historical context and the glossary at the end are very awesome and I highly recommend everyone look at both.

To read such a stunning account of a woman that truly lived in the 600s, Hild was a woman full of life, intelligence, complexities, and to see her story come to life through the author’s works…well let’s just say I am impressed.

Highly excited about the conclusion of the trilogy.

5/5 stars

Thank you NG and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 10/3/23.

DRC provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Nicola Griffith is a certainty. Pure excellence.

I had enjoyed Hild and other books by Nicola Griffith so I was excited that there was a sequel happening. This had what I enjoyed from Hild and improved on this. The characters were what I was looking for and I was glad I got to read this as they were interesting characters. It had what I enjoyed from Nicola Griffith and can't wait for more from her.

"Before she married, she had agreed to take Ceadwin into her household to foster but had found reason after reason to delay. And just after Wilgith died, when she again told Saxfryth’s messenger that, no, no she could not possibly take the boy this year, Cian had folded his arms—so like Onnen—and said, “He’s a likely-looking lad. And his sister Ceadfryth will one day make a good companion for Little Hedgepig.”