Tender, lyrical, surprising, and magical - think Sarah Winman with a dash of Neil Gaiman - The Oxenbridge King is a delight, a true original.
Imagine, if you will: the lost soul of King Richard III; a talking raven; a lost, lonely angel; and Molly Stern - heartbroken, grieving, a bit stroppy and definitely not feeling herself.
When the worlds of the lost soul of a King and the angel sent to collect him collide messily with the 21st century world of Molly Stern, anything can happen. Think: Hilary Mantel meets Sarah Winman, with a dash of Neil Gaiman: The Oxenbridge King is endearing, quirky, tender, lyrical and magical - and entirely original.
The lost soul of Richard III is trapped in the afterlife, below the last Abbey he visited while alive. Though his soul has been between worlds for hundreds of years, up in the real world, it's 2012 and Molly Stern has a broken heart from losing her father and a recent breakup. Leaving London, Molly goes home to seek solace from her Aunt Peggy and Uncle Frank in Oxenbridge, but there are strange noises in the basement of her childhood house, and Peggy and Frank seem to have domestic troubles of their own, and nothing feels right. When the soul of Richard III is startled from the Abbey catacombs and the angel sent to collect him goes missing in action, all their worlds messily and unexpectedly collide, with surprising and definitely unexpected consequences.
Inspired by the discovery of the bones of Richard III found buried underneath a car park in the UK, award-winning poet Christine Paice has fashioned a beautiful, singular, warm and funny novel that weaves in and out of time and space and possibility. The Oxenbridge King is a love story, a meditation on what survives of us when we're gone, and how, in the end, love and family is everything.
Author Biography:
Christine Paice is the author of the novel The Word Ghost and two poetry collections, Staring at the Aral Sea and Mad Oaks. Her poetry has also been published in the Best Australian Poems anthologies, and she won the prestigious Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize in 2009. In 2010 Christine became the University of Wollongong's inaugural Janet Cosh Poet, resulting in the work Collecting the Collector. Christine facilitates creative writing and poetry workshops, and also works as a creative writing mentor. She has recently moved back to the United Kingdom.