The Conquest — Elizabeth Chadwick

When a comet appears in the sky over England in the spring of 1066, it heralds a time of momentous change for Ailith, a young Saxon wife. Newly pregnant, she has developed a friendship with her neighbour, Felice, a Norman wine merchant's wife who is also with child. But When Felice's countrymen come not as friends but as conquerors, they take all that Ailith holds dear.

Rescued from suicidal grief by Rolf, a handsome Norman horse-breeder, Ailith is persuaded to become a nurse to Felice's son, Benedict, but it soon develops into a situation fraught with tension. Ailith leaves Felice's household for Rolf's English lands and becomes his mistress, bearing him a daughter, Julitta. But the Battle of Hastings has left a savage legacy which is to have bitter repercussions, not only for Rolf and Ailith, but for the next generation, Benedict and Julitta.

From bustling London streets to the windswept Yorkshire Dales, from green Norman farmland to the rugged mountains of the Pyrenees and the Spain of El Cid, this is an epic saga of love and loss, compassion and brutality, filled with characters you will never forget.