Now We Shall Be Entirely Free

One of The Times' Best Novels of the 21st Century

De: Andrew Miller

Narrado por: Joe Jameson

By the Costa Award-winning author of PURE, a stunning historical novel with the grip of a thriller, written in richly evocative, luminous prose.

One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain's disastrous campaign against Napoleon's forces in Spain.

Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind - he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs.

Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all.

(P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Reseñas de la Crítica

Scary, mysterious and thoughtful - the world of Jane Austen bespattered by mud, atrocity and driving rain (Andrew Marr, Books of the Year)

A propulsive, beautifully written investigation into atrocity, guilt and new beginnings (Justine Jordan, Books of the Year)

A high grade cat-and-mouse manhunt that covers the length of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars - a sort of The 39 Steps with added malice . . . pitch-perfect (Michael Prodger, Books of the Year)

The plot grips and surprises. Miller's prose remains poetic and taut with an eye for the telling detail . . . he excels at creating characters who are defined, not limited, by a specific time and place, not just Lacroix, Calley and Medina but the minor players too. Historical or otherwise, this is fiction - storytelling - at its best (Andy Miller)

Excellent . . . a novel of delicately shifting moods, a pastoral comedy and passionate romance story alternating with a blackly menacing thriller. It is also a book of ideas: about male violence, the impact of war and the price of freedom (Johanna Thomas-Corr)

A profound exploration of culpability, written in prose that comes singing off the page . . . a compelling read and an important literary achievement (Fiona Sampson)

Enthralling . . . Miller paints a richly detailed portrait of a society in some ways familiar, in others impossibly strange (Suzi Feay)

I much enjoyed Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, in which Andrew Miller returned to more orthodox historical fiction after 2015's The Crossing and triumphantly proved there's plenty of life in the old form yet (James Walton, Books of the Year)

Both a ripping yarn and a skilful mediation on absence . . . The pacing of his story is excellent; his style is crisp; his apprehension of pain is arresting; and his ability to show people trembling at the edge of unreason is compelling (Andrew Motion)

In his luminous prose, Costa Prize winner Andrew Miller conjures three very different men, but their experiences have all been traumatising. Manhunt and pilgrimage, the tale unfolds into a gripping and, ultimately, surprising exploration of the inner battleground (Elizabeth Buchan)

Miller recreates the past so vividly that reading the novel is never less than a fully immersive experience . . . particularly enjoyable and satisfying

Since the publication in 1997 of his first novel . . . his books have revealed a powerful imagination at work, and one that is also rooted in the precisely yet poetically described realities of daily life . . . In his new novel, he succeeds in creating an involving, suspenseful drama and a moving portrait of a man in search of redemption from the violence of his past

Miller's beautiful sentences are a joy to read and his engrossing novel, teeming with vivid historical detail, is as suspenseful as any thriller