A Good Deliverance: by Toby Clements

Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur was the first great work of prose fiction in English and remains one of its most resonant and influential still. Out from its pages stride King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Lady Guinevere, Sir Gawain, and the wizard Merlin, and on them are defined once and for all the legends of Excalibur, Camelot, the Lady of the Lake, and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Yet little is known of its author and such that is known is of questionable reputation. Indeed, his great work was written while he languished in gaol under lock and key in 1470. A pacy prison confession, A Good Deliverance reimagines Sir Thomas Malory's life and times as he lived them among incredible historical figures, battles and court intrigues. Told by the man himself at nearly seventy years old, to a dutiful young servant call Brunt's Boy, this is a story about power, fate and frailty. It is a sweeping epic that tracks the rise and fall of one man who laid out the terms of romance and chivalry through the ages - and it is a crucial examination and celebration of why his work still resonates today, even after more than half a millennium.