The Tapestry of Time
COMING 2024 from HarperVoyager UK.
UK and much of the world: Sept. 26, 2024
Canada: Oct. 1, 2024
US: June 3, 2025
About 384 pages.
There’s a tradition in the Sharp family that some possess the Second Sight. But is it superstition, or true psychic power?
Kit Sharp is in Paris, where she is involved in a love affair with the stunning Evelyn Larsen, and working as an archivist, having inherited her historian father’s fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry. He believes that parts of the tapestry were made before 1066, and that it was a tool for prediction, not a simple record of events.
The Nazis are also obsessed with the tapestry: convinced that not only did it predict the Norman Conquest of England, but that it will aid them in their invasion of Britain.
Ivy Sharp has joined the Special Operations Executive – the SOE – a secret unit set up to carry out espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance. Having demonstrated that she has extraordinary powers of perception, she is dropped into Northern France on a special mission.
With the war on a knife edge, the Sharp Sisters face certain death. Can their courage and extrasensory gifts prevent the enemy from using the tapestry to bring about a devastating victory against the Allied Forces?
Cover by Toby James. Edited by Jane Johnson.
Content note available here.
Book club kit available here.
Salon Futura review by Cheryl Morgan: "The Tapestry of Time is a book that is dripping with excellent historical research, and a deep respect for the roles played by women in WWII. Of course I loved it."
SFX review: "A darker take on Raiders of the Lost Ark ... a fine piece of work."
Locus review by Gary K. Wolfe: "A solid art-historical thriller for grownups."
‘Set in the darkest days of World War II, four sisters, clairvoyants all, battle against time to capture a powerful occult treasure before it falls into the hands of the Nazis. There are dark moments, filled with horror, grief and despair, but also bright ones of courage, joy and hope. The Tapestry of Time is a promise that love is stronger than hate and that families and communities are our strongest bastions. It celebrates the vital, but too often unsung, role that women played, and continue to play, in the fight against fascism.
Kate Heartfield gets better with every single book and this one is simply terrific.’
Hayden Trenholm, Aurora Award winning author of The Passion of Ivan Rodriguez
‘No one writes historical fantasy like Kate Heartfield and she is at the top of her game in The Tapestry of Time. While this WWII novel never shies away from the moral complexities of war, readers will cheer for the Sharp sisters as they each find their unique strengths, both mundane and fantastic, in the fight against fascism and to reunite and redefine their family. By the end, you’ll want to raise the V for victory in triumph’
M. Darusha Wehm, author of Hamlet, Prince of Robots and winner of the Sir Julius Vogel award
‘Kate Heartfield’s The Tapestry of Time is a stunning book that perfectly marries a World War II story of resistance with the supernatural. It’s speculative historical fiction at its very best, and kept me turning pages late into the night’
Jenny Rae Rappaport, author of Girls With Needles and Frost
‘Kate Heartfield’s novels are personal favorites. This WWII thriller mixes psychic spies, four sisters, and the Bayeux Tapestry in surprisingly fiendish ways.’
Rosemary Jones, author of The Bootlegger’s Dance
‘In THE TAPESTRY OF TIME, Kate Heartfield weaves a tale full of emotion and danger as competent women shuttle through the back alleys of history. Once again Heartfield expertly navigates history to show us that while the future may not be certain, there’s no shortage of excitement in getting there.’
Phoebe Barton, Aurora Award Winner