With prose as rich as frankincense and clear as good spring water, Griffith's version of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Britain is rendered in riotous, loving detail through the eyes of the child Hild, seeress at the ascendant court of Edwin, her uncle and the first king of Northumbria. Griffith excels at immersing the reader in Hild's world, where the change of seasons and movements of animals can augur a strong harvest and full bellies or the fall of a kingdom, and where Hild interprets patterns in the complicated weave of political intrigue that surrounds her and leverages her keen intuition to navigate both court and the end of her childhood.