The Countenance Divine

Description

'Michael Hughes writes like a brilliant cross between David Mitchell and Hilary Mantel' Toby Litt In 1999 a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something. In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master. In 1777 an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns. And in 1666, poet and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries later. But where does the feeling come from that the world is about to end?

Michael Hughes was born and raised in Keady, Northern Ireland, and now lives in London. He attended St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh, and read English at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He trained in theatre at the Jacques Lecoq School in Paris, and has worked for many years as an actor, under the professional name Michael Colgan. He studied creative writing at Royal Holloway, and at London Metropolitan University, where he also taught. The Countenance Divine is his first novel.

One of the most exciting novels I've read in recent years. Michael Hughes writes like a brilliant cross between David Mitchell and Hilary Mantel. What begins with a dizzying variety of voices, in a bewildering set of times, comes together at the end into a powerful, haunting meditation on history, poetry and love - Toby Litt