The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Tracy Chevalier 2019
Cover design by Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Shelley Richmond / Trevillion Images (woman) and Shutterstock.com (needle and thread)
“Love Is The Sweetest Thing” Written by Ray Noble
Published by Range Road Music and Bienstock Publishing
Company o/b/o Redwood Music Ltd
Rights administered by Round Hill Carlin, LLC
Tracy Chevalier asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008153816
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2019 ISBN: 9780008153830
Version: 2020-05-06
For Morag
Contents
“SHHH!”
Violet Speedwell frowned. She did not need shushing; she had not said anything.
The shusher, an officious woman sporting a helmet of grey hair, had planted herself squarely in the archway that led into the choir, Violet’s favourite part of Winchester Cathedral. The choir was right in the centre of the building – the nave extending one way, the presbytery and retrochoir the other, the north and south transepts’ short arms fanning out on either side to complete the cross of the whole structure. The