Yorkshire, England, 1665. Martin Blake is a cobbler in a small village outside York. He lives modestly with his wife Susanna and their son Thomas, surviving on hard work and a careful faith. When Martin accidentally kills a raven, its grieving mate begins to haunt him - perched in the oak tree, watching from the graveyard, appearing in his waking hours with an insistence he cannot explain.
Into the family's already strained household, the parish rector - Susanna's domineering uncle - forces four orphaned children displaced by the Great Plague in London. There is not enough food, not enough space, and not enough mercy. As the harshest winter in memory descends, illness and grief compound the buried sins Martin has long refused to name. When tragedy strips away what he loves most, his grip on reality fractures completely. The dead begin to speak. The ravens keep coming.
A literary gothic horror novel of psychological descent and institutional cruelty, The Raven is rooted in the history of plague-era Yorkshire and the authentic power structures of the 17th-century Church of England - including the real historical figure of Archbishop Richard Sterne of York. McCauley's writing is atmospheric and precise, holding the ambiguity between grief, guilt, and the supernatural without resolution until its violent, inevitable close.
"A bubbling brew of dread and tragedy, history and folklore - you'll be entranced from the first sip." - Lisa Morton, six-time Bram Stoker Award(R) winner
For readers of Andrew Michael Hurley, Susan Hill, and Shirley Jackson.