"Tindall's voice is richly her own: tender but unsentimental and lit by intimate knowledge of her chosen world." - Colin Thubron

Culminating a distinguished career spanning more than 60 years, historian Gillian Tindall has written a novel as her final statement.

In an astonishing feat of literary imagination, she projects herself back onto one of her forebears to conjure a compelling vision of 17th century England.

By trade, the main character is a metal founder, an occupation that leads him from the villages of Sussex to the bell foundry in Spitalfields.

This is a hymn to those who pass through life not leaving a trace, except in the hearts of those into whose lives they have been cast.