Flint and Mirror

by John Crowley Narrated by Samuel Roukin

Overview

From award-winning author John Crowley comes a novel that masterfully blends history and magic.

In an island nation divided against itself, governed by a larger island to the east whose monarch is Elizabeth the Great, there have been decades of war. As ancient Irish clans fought to preserve their lands and their way of life, the Queen and her generals fought to tame the wild land and make it English.

Hugh O'Neill, lord of the North, dubbed Earl of Tyrone by the Queen, is a divided man: Elizabeth gives to Hugh her love, and her commandments, through a little mirror of obsidian which he can never discard; but the ancient peoples of Ireland arise from their underworld to make Hugh their champion, the token of their vow a chip of flint.

Much of this history is true, and once it might be said that all of it was. This is a historical novel shot through with fantasy, or alternately, a great fantasy novel hung on a scaffolding of history. If Neil Gaiman collaborated with Hilary Mantel, you might get something like Flint and Mirror.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for Flint and Mirror:

“Crowley triumphs with this beautiful, subtle fantasy...Fans of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell will be mesmerized.”

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[An] enthralling secret history of the last great rebellion against the Tudor conquest of Ireland...Crowley deftly handles the balance between history and fiction without ever lowering the quality of his excellent prose.”

— Booklist (starred review)

Praise for John Crowley:

"Crowley is generous, obsessed, fascinating, gripping. Really, I think Crowley is so good that he has left everybody else in the dust."

— Peter Straub

"Like a magus, John Crowley shares his secrets generously, allowing us to believe that his book is revealing the true and glorious nature of the world and the reader's own place within it."

— Village Voice

"[Crowley] transforms the lead of daily life into seriously dazzling artistic gold."

— Newsday

"Crowley writes so magnificently that only a handful of living writers in English can equal him as a stylist, and most of them are poets...Little, Big seems to me as miraculous as Shakespeare or Lewis Carroll: it is as if the book had always been there, the way Falstaff and Humpty Dumpty were there from the start, and Shakespeare and Carroll found them."

— Harold Bloom

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178480656
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/19/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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