Burnable Book

Bruce W. Holsinger is a prolific and award-winning scholar of the Middle Ages who teaches at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. His books on medieval culture have won numerous prizes from the Modern Language Association, the Medieval Academy of America, and other scholarly organizations, and he is the co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Movies, Flicks, and Film. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Council of Learned Societies. A Burnable Book is his first novel.

'This is a rich novel...Bruce Holsinger is a leading American scholar of the Middle Ages and his debut novel combines detailed knowledge of the period with an undoubted gift for gripping storytelling' BBC History magazine 'This book has almost everything you could want in a historical fiction - rich in period detail and driven by a compulsively engaging and tangled story...The characters are well drawn, the social mores related in unapologetic detail and his multi-layered plot shows a superb storytelling fluency comparable with C.J. Sansom and Nancy Bilyeux.' Crime Review 'An enjoyable story of murder and intrigue in 14th-century London' Sunday Times 'Holsinger carries the reader to Oxford, Italy and Spain, but the highlight is his description of medieval London with its murky, poverty-stricken streets...enjoyable and intelligent' Daily Mail 'His profound knowledge of the 14th century provides a wonderfully convincing backdrop... his London feels like a real place, from St Paul's churchyard to Southwark's Gropecunt Lane. Comparisons with C.J. Sansom are inevitable, and justified' Andrew Taylor, Spectator 'John Gower is the perfect narrator and amateur sleuth ...Holsinger's research, alongside the energetic vulgarity of a language in flux, delivers up a world where even the filth is colorful' New York Times Book Review 'A murder, a verse and a whore; the prologue of Bruce Holsinger's A BURNABLE BOOK draws the reader in and does not let go. A deep understanding of the period combines with sophisticated writing to create a richly imagined world. Excellent historical fiction' Harry Sidebottom, bestselling author of the WARRIOR OF ROME series 'A lush bibliomaniac thriller... Holsinger is a graceful guide to the 14th century, lacing his thriller with just the right seasoning of antique words and all the necessary historical detail without any of the fusty smell of a documentary' Ron Charles Washington Post