Beyond the Wall
06 April 2017Synopsis
The story of a runaway slave girl and her dangerous journey through the murky underworld of Roman Britain, by Carnegie Medal-winning author Tanya Landman.
From Tanya Landman, author of the 2015 Carnegie Medal winner Buffalo Soldier, comes a heart-stopping tale of love, corruption and the power of choice. Blood on her lips. Blood on her tongue. Blood that is not her own. Cassia does not fear to die, but for her – for a slave who has maimed her master – there are worse things than death. Yet the mighty Roman Empire has its limits. Beyond her master’s estate, beyond the river, far to the north stands Hadrian’s Wall. And beyond the wall? Freedom. With dogs on her trail and a bounty on her head the journey seems impossible. But then Cassia meets Marcus – slick, slippery, silver-tongued – a true and perfect son of Rome. And her only hope.
Details
06 April 2017
9781406366273Reviews
Slave girl Cassia escapes her master and sets out on a perilous journey north to Hadrian's Wall, and the freedom that lies beyond. I'm 100 pages in and captivated by Cassia's voice.
The writing is crisply vivid, and packs a powerful visual punch, and I loved how Boudica’s spirit of resistance and rebellion permeated the book through Cassia’s indomitable strength. She’s an extraordinarily memorable heroine, and this is an extraordinary novel - historical YA at its best, no less.
This gripping tale, aimed at a mature reader, of the captives’ rebellion that frayed the edges of the Roman empire in AD4 […] Cassia and Marcus have a modern sensibility while credibly belonging to their ancient world, which fosters our connection to the deep past.
But her skill is that of the novelist, rather than the historian. As with Rosemary Sutcliff’s classic children’s novel The Eagle of the Ninth, Landman is particularly good on the domestic nitty-gritty of Roman Britain. Dates and timelines are swiftly dispensed (“This was Britannia… occupied by enemy forces these last 300 years”) but, when it comes to the hue of a mosaic or what’s in a cooking pot, her eye never blinks and the pace of her story never slackens. “I have played fast and loose with strict historical accuracy,” she explains in an afterword. And, like any of the best historical novelists, she gets away with it.
“[…] gripping […] Landman is an accomplished storyteller who finds footnotes from history and turns them into heavy-breathing tales of human perseverance. Her research is thorough, but she doesn’t let what she doesn’t know slow her down. A lesson in how to conquer historical young adult fiction, brick by brick.”
