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Product Description
Product Description
'Gappy old grin, eyes like grey holes...these very branches. Look up, Janey...' It looks like a paradise parish: cobbled streets, black and white timber -framed houses. But, even before she moves in, Merrily Watkins, the new woman priest, has witnessed an ugly death. Soon she'll be involved in a bitter dispute over a play about a 17th century vicar accused of witchcraft...a story which certain old families would rather remained obscure. Welcome to Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrecy. And, as Merrily and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover, a village where horrific murder is a tradition spanning centuries.
About the Author
Phil Rickman lives on the Welsh border where he writes and presents the book programme Phil the Shelf on BBC Radio Wales. He is the hugely popular author of The Bones of Avalon and the Merrily Watkins Mysteries.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a very welcome re-issue of the first in Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series.
Here Merrily, as the new 'priest in charge' in the picturesque Herefordshire Village of Ledwardine, finds herself in the middle of a local disagreement about the possibility of using the church to stage a new play - about a previous incumbent who was accused of witchcraft - and more.
She also has to contend with a possibly haunted vicarage and problems with her teenage daughter Jane, who has Pagan tendencies and isn't at all happy about her mother's vocation.
And all this is before the killings start!
A marvellous, richly atmospheric story which will keep you enthralled right to the end. If you've never read a Merrily novel, this is the ideal place to start - but, if you have read any of the later books, do buy this one and find out how it all began.
Once you're hooked - and you will be - don't despair if you can't find the rest of the series, they are all to be republished at bi-monthly intervals.
Here Merrily, as the new 'priest in charge' in the picturesque Herefordshire Village of Ledwardine, finds herself in the middle of a local disagreement about the possibility of using the church to stage a new play - about a previous incumbent who was accused of witchcraft - and more.
She also has to contend with a possibly haunted vicarage and problems with her teenage daughter Jane, who has Pagan tendencies and isn't at all happy about her mother's vocation.
And all this is before the killings start!
A marvellous, richly atmospheric story which will keep you enthralled right to the end. If you've never read a Merrily novel, this is the ideal place to start - but, if you have read any of the later books, do buy this one and find out how it all began.
Once you're hooked - and you will be - don't despair if you can't find the rest of the series, they are all to be republished at bi-monthly intervals.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rickman seduces you into his sleepy, pastoral village of Ledwardine with promises of home brewed cider and fairies at the bottom of the orchard. Only when it's too late for the reader/listener to catch the last bus home does he scratch away the surface to reveal the sordid underbelly of English country life doused in incest, blood-feuds, rape and murder.
This, the first of the Merrily Watkins procedurals is a ghost story wrapped inside a mystery and bound tightly together with the twine of dark folklore. It also delivers a plot twist that gives the sort of jolt you would normally only expect from a gibbet trapdoor.
As always Rickman's dialogue is a joy as he fleshes out the various suicidal dreamers, quirky eccentrics and sexual predators who inhabit his strange little village. As Nick Drake, the quintessential lost soul himself, who makes an eerie cameo role in the book says - The Pink Moon is gonna get you all!
This, the first of the Merrily Watkins procedurals is a ghost story wrapped inside a mystery and bound tightly together with the twine of dark folklore. It also delivers a plot twist that gives the sort of jolt you would normally only expect from a gibbet trapdoor.
As always Rickman's dialogue is a joy as he fleshes out the various suicidal dreamers, quirky eccentrics and sexual predators who inhabit his strange little village. As Nick Drake, the quintessential lost soul himself, who makes an eerie cameo role in the book says - The Pink Moon is gonna get you all!
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When you are SO bored of "Da Vinci Mode" books, badly written with vapid and badly drawn out female characters come home to Britain with possibly the best series of mystery/thrillers being written today. I happened across this book in a second hand book shop one summer and spent a cracking weekend sitting in the garden getting to know Merrily, Jane and Ledwardine.
Since then I have read all of the series and like all sustained efforts at writing it had its ups and its downs, but above and beyond that if you, like me, think that entertaining reading does not have to be simplistic this is the book for you. I envy you if you are about to click and hit the basket because going to Ledwardine for the first time is always the best. Turn down the lights, put another log on the fire and have a frothy mug of hot chocolate at the ready...Wine of Angels will keep you up late!
Possibly the most innovative and unique thriller writer working in the UK today. I often used to get confused on the series order...I would say read them in order if you can...it doesn't matter if you can't but the growth of the characters is so much clearer!
The Wine of Angels (1998)
Midwinter of the Spirit (1999)
A Crown of Lights (2001)
The Cure of Souls (2001)
The Lamp of the Wicked (2002)
The Prayer of the Night Shepherd (2004)
The Smile of a Ghost (2005)
The Remains of an Altar (2006)
The Fabric of Sin (2007)
To Dream of the Dead (2008)
The Secrets of Pain (2011)
Since then I have read all of the series and like all sustained efforts at writing it had its ups and its downs, but above and beyond that if you, like me, think that entertaining reading does not have to be simplistic this is the book for you. I envy you if you are about to click and hit the basket because going to Ledwardine for the first time is always the best. Turn down the lights, put another log on the fire and have a frothy mug of hot chocolate at the ready...Wine of Angels will keep you up late!
Possibly the most innovative and unique thriller writer working in the UK today. I often used to get confused on the series order...I would say read them in order if you can...it doesn't matter if you can't but the growth of the characters is so much clearer!
The Wine of Angels (1998)
Midwinter of the Spirit (1999)
A Crown of Lights (2001)
The Cure of Souls (2001)
The Lamp of the Wicked (2002)
The Prayer of the Night Shepherd (2004)
The Smile of a Ghost (2005)
The Remains of an Altar (2006)
The Fabric of Sin (2007)
To Dream of the Dead (2008)
The Secrets of Pain (2011)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
10 stars at least for this wonderful novel!
I am new to Phil Rickman and have just spent two days completely absorbed within the pages of this, the first of the Merrily Watkins series. Read more
Published 18 days ago by wendy
Dull
I wish I had not bought this book. The plot was boring and I never really got into it. The only highlight is when people start dying. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Flying sleuth
My first Phil Rickman novel but it won't be my last!
I really enjoyed this novel. I read a wide genre of books and I am always looking out for new authors and I was not disappointed with my first read of a Phil Rickman book, in fact... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Vachulme
Mystery with an aura of evil
It starts off very much with the feel of a Marplesque village scenario or Midsomer Murder plot. However that feeling is just a trap to lure the reader into a deeper darker story. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Cheryl M-M
Good start
I've only read one of Rickman's other novels, The Bones of Avalon, which was a historical novel, quite different from this one. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Steve D
Merrily ambling down a country track with no real purpose, it seems
I have to admit, one of the main reasons for buying this book was that it was cheap. The other reasons was that it sounded as though it was a crime novel, but with a supernatural... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Brida
fearsome stuff!
I hoped I'd found a new 'favourite' author: the reviews are good, the stories sound interesting.
I've just finished "the wine of angels" and it has left so many nasty images... Read more
I've just finished "the wine of angels" and it has left so many nasty images... Read more
Published 4 months ago by BookBeetle
The Wine of Angels.
The first Merrily Watkins book I read was The Cure of Souls, and I was hooked. I then read Crown of Lights initially expecting I'd find it samey, and just get bored. No way! Read more
Published 4 months ago by Netta
Disappointing
The story basically involves a female vicar moving in to a rural parish (same set up as a million so-called TV comedies, then) and getting involved in some sort of mystery and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Apple-eater
Great picture of rural life
This was my first taste of Merrily Watkins or indeed, of Phil Rickman. If anything, I approached it from a marginally negative angle as my wife had not enjoyed his 'Bones of... Read more
Published 5 months ago by swazijohn
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