Canticle - A Novel

Set in thirteenth-century Bruges, this debut novel follows a young woman’s explorations of faith, agency, and love among a community of fiercely independent women.

Aleys is sixteen years old and unusual: serious, stubborn, prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, a young scholar, have been learning Latin together in secret—but just as she thinks their connection might become something more, he abandons her for the monastery. When her family falls on hard financial times, her father promises her in marriage to the unctuous head of the weavers’ guild, and in desperation she runs away from home, eventually finding shelter within a community of religious women who do not answer to the church.

Among the hardworking and strong-willed Beguines, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging: a life of song, friendship, and time spent in the markets and along the canals of Bruges. But forces both mystical and political are afoot. Ille