Village 1349 Synopsis

Following is a synopsis of my latest book project, VILLAGE1349 a 280 page adventure/mystery novel for middle readers 12+ coming soon to a Kobo or bookstore or scriptorium near you. 

            For the people of the isolated English village of Twitchmere, the clock stopped in 1349, the year the Black Death swept England, but miraculously spared them. Like Mennonites with time rewound too far, they enter the twenty-first century as a secret enclave, stubbornly keeping to the ways of the middle ages, fearing discovery and contamination by the outside world.

            For 15 year old Charlie Cooper, the strange disappearance of his war veteran grandfather, who left nothing but cryptic whispered last words, is a defining moment, and those words haunt his dreams. When he and his family move from suburban Toronto into the run-down medieval Blackhampton Hall, shadowy links between the rumoured  utopian village and the grandfather’s secret WWII past start to unfold. A cast of unlikely players circle as the parallel mysteries converge. Alfred, the outcast, has a private grief he cannot name and ancient skills to teach. Warriors itch for battle, a dog called Leonard has his fifteen seconds of fame, Latin-spouting vagabonds discover cel phones and Gameboys. Elders from the secret village make forays to the outside, some for gain, some for the sake of their community. And in the background, the ominous black cloud of biological warfare and a heartless corporation casts its shadow over all, threatening the village with a disease as deadly as the Plague: Greed.

            As secrets come to light, Charlie Cooper is reluctantly thrown into a lead role defending the village, as his grandfather had years earlier. The story culminates in the tournament, staged to draw the secret village into a bloody battle with a troupe of elite historical re-enactors. Characters show their true colours and roles reverse: ambitious executives more bloodthirsty than the knights they seek to exploit, vegan poets transform into carnivorous warriors, children expose the secrets of the past and the village is brought, once again, to the brink of exposure and ruin. 

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Village1349    for more on this, email  david@davidgillettdesign.com