“Twilight over meadow and water, the eve-star shining above the hill, and Old Nog the heron crying kra-a-ark! as his slow dark wings carried him down to the estuary.” (First line, Tarka the Otter, Henry Williamson, 1927)
The Shardlake historical (Tudor) whodunnits are as “compulsively gripping” (Sunday Times), “superb” (Independent), “thrilling” (Sunday Telegraph) and “compelling” (Observer) as these plaudits on the cover of Revelation (the fourth in the series) attest.
If you want people to know you have a cold, ostentatiously blow your nose; but if you are feeling pretentious, something I sometimes feel, it’s not so easy to signal.
Henry Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland had thirteen children, six of whom were daughters, and only one of the bakers’ dozen died in infancy. I put that down to the bracing Alnwick air.