Hurdy Gurdy

I pledge on the jeopardy of my immortal soul. I saw it all, with my young eyes. From start to end. And may Lucifer, and his infernal demons, fry my liver for break-fast if a word of this sorry history turns out to be a lie. It is the year of our Lord 1349 and it is the season of the Plague. Novice friar Brother Diggory, now sixteen, has lived in the Monastery of the Order of St Odo at Whye since his eighth birthday. But his life is about to change. The sickness is creeping ever closer and the monks must attend to the victims. When Brother Diggory is nominated to tend to those afflicted, he realises he is about to meet the Plague, and that it is more powerful than him. What he doesn't realise is that encountering an illness and understanding it are two quite different things. An uproarious and uplifting novel about sickness and health, the fashions of 14th Century medicine, and how perhaps we're never quite as cutting-edge as we might like to believe.