When Christ and His Saints Slept

Nov 25, 2025 10:01 PM

Author:Sharon Penman

With this novel Sharon Penman moves to a new set of characters and to 12th Century England and the early civil war between Stephen and his cousin, The Empress Made - A long fight to won the English throne. Stephen was handsome, unreliable and beguiling. Maude was courageous, beautiful and insanely arrogant. They fought for twenty years and devastated England. Their flair for dramatic events and immense catastrophes made sure that they were never boring.

Reviews

A work of art

—— Irish Times

Gemmell is several rungs above the good - right into the fabulous

—— Anne McCaffrey

Has everything a fan of heroic fantasy could desire

—— Stephen Donaldson

I am truly amazed at David Gemmell's ability to focus his writer's eye. His images are crisp and complete, a history lesson woven within the detailed tapestry of the highest adventure. Gemmell's characters are no less complete, real men and women with qualities good and bad, placed in trying times and rising to heroism or falling victim to their own weaknesses

—— R. A. Salvatore, author of Mortalis

Gemmell is very talented; his characters are vivid and very convincingly realistic

—— Christopher Stasheff, author of the Wizard of Rhyme novels

'Delights, amuses, moves and angers you with the lightest of touches. It is, as might be said of Cadence herself, a small masterpiece'

—— Simon Callow , Vogue

'Wonderful, funny, poignant and gutsy...you can feel the author's huge and hurt and loving heart beat on every page'

—— Anne Lamott , Mademoiselle

'An intensely enjoyable novel about friendship and prejudice: the dialogue is word perfect, the psycology laser fine, and there are some terrific jokes... but no synopsis can do justice to this glorious book'

—— David Profumo , Weekend Telegraph

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