The Silver Well received a starred review in Publishers' Weekly & won the 2017 Aurealis Award for Best Collection. One of Kate’s stories, ‘The Cunning Woman's Daughter’ also won the 2017 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novella.
Best-selling legends of Australian fantasy Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins have teamed up in this collection of 7 incredible stories, all original and never-before published.
One English village. Two thousand years of stories.
People have always come to make wishes at the Silver Well: in Pagan times and Christian, during revolution and war. When Rosie arrives in the tiny village of Cerne Abbas with a broken heart, she becomes connected across the centuries with others who have yearned for something. Seven stories, set in seven time periods, reveal the deepest longings of the human heart.
- Prologue – The Wishing Tree
- The Blessing
- My Sister’s Ghost
- The True Confession of Obedience-to-God Ashe
- The Cunning Woman’s Daughter
- The End of Everything
- The Giant
- Epilogue – The Past is Not Dead
“In this absorbing collection, the authors present seven stories, all linked through their setting of Cerne Abbas, a village in Dorset, which is home to an ancient wishing well and a giant (and well-endowed) hill-figure sculpted into the chalk countryside. The folk beliefs of the region play a strong role in each story, each of which is extraordinarily attuned to its era while evoking the timelessness of human emotions: protectiveness, jealousy, hope, fear, and love.”
Historical Novel Society
‘In this transcendent collaborative collection, Forsyth (The Beast’s Garden) and Wilkins (Sisters of the Fire) touch the heart and speak to the soul, weaving tales rich with magic, love, and loss … All the stories are vivid, with a full range of emotions and intricacies meant to enrapture and engross. This is a splendid achievement.’
Starred review in Publisher’s Weekly
