The Devil's Diadem - Hardcover

“Sara Douglass has the breadth of vision necessary to create sweeping epics and the storyteller’s gift that makes readers love her.”
—Locus

Sara Douglass has already established herself as one of the most original and exciting of today’s bestselling fantasists with her Wayfarer Redemption Trilogy, DarkGlass Mountain Trilogy, and other magnificent works of epic fantasy. With The Devil’s Diadem, she delivers a richly imaginative stand-alone novel of alternate history, set in a twelfth-century England similar to our own time, in which a virulent plague threatens to annihilate a kingdom—and one unwitting young noblewoman holds the key to salvation. Library Journal puts Douglass’s work, “on a par with with Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan.” Read The Devil’s Diadem and you will most certainly agree.

Bestselling author Sara Douglass—acclaimed writer of the Axis and Wayfarer Redemption trilogies—invites you to visit a twelfth-century England very similar to our own—except this England is a country on the brink of demonic disaster and its only hope may lie with a young noblewoman

The Devil’s Diadem

Maeb Langtofte is lucky, she knows, to have gained a position in the household of the Earl of Pengraic—one of the most powerful men in England, a man whose holdings rival even King Edmond’s. She is lucky that his wife, Adelie, whom Maeb serves, is a kind, pious woman (in contrast to the Earl, whom Maeb finds dark and secretive). But when word arrives that a plague is sweeping through Europe like a human wildfire, everyone in the Earl’s household is put on edge. It is whispered that victims of this plague are spontaneously engulfed in flames—as if the flames of Hell had suddenly leapt up to claim them. It is also whispered that the Devil himself is to blame.

As the disease spreads into England, so too does civil unrest. King Edmond calls his lords and their armies to return to London, and the Earl obeys, leaving Maeb and his family to fend for themselves. But it turns out that the Earl has been hiding far more than simple state secrets, and that his family, left alone, is at risk of losing not only their lives but also their souls. To her horror, Maeb will learn that, indeed, the Devil himself may have arrived on her doorstep. And worse, what he demands may, in fact, be running through her very veins.