Canticle

Edwards debuts with an inspired tale of a devout and defiant young woman in medieval Bruges, in Flanders. Aleys, 16, grows up with adoration for the church. After her mother dies, she becomes more devout. Her friend Finn teaches her Latin and she falls in love with him, but her hopes for their future together are dashed when he says he’s joining the monastery. Then her father declares that she’ll marry the head of a guild. Distraught, Aleys runs away from home. She’s taken in by the beguines, a group of women who secretly translate religious texts from Latin into Dutch. Deeply committed to finding her calling, she asks God, “What’s my gift,” and an answer seems to come while she prays for a deathly ill boy, whose infected wounds disappear. Nervous about the attention paid to Aleys for the miracle, the bishop places her in isolation, where she’s preyed upon by a sexually abusive priest. Her efforts to escape threaten the beguine community, already under scrutiny for the translations, and Aleys is forced to make an impossible choice. Drawing on stories and biographies of medieval saints, Edwards faithfully highlights the lives of 13th-century religious women and the sacrifices they were forced to make. Readers of Lauren Groff’s Matrix ought to take a look. Agent: Jonah Straus, Straus Literary. (Dec.)