Ernest Prunera

NÈSTOR LUJÁN HISTORICAL NOVEL PRIZE
A thrilling novel set during the founding years of Catalonia. A tale of power, faith, and identity in the shadow of the Carolingian Empire.

Year 843. The Carolingian Empire fractures after the death of Louis the Pious, and the struggles between his successors shake all of Europe. In the south, the Hispanic March—a borderland between Christians and Muslims—becomes a contested territory, struck by Saracen raids, noble conspiracies, and the ambitions of distant kings.

Joan Ferragut, a successful writer at a low point in his life, travels to Baronia de Mancamans, an isolated village in the mountains, where he has inherited an old mansion. As soon as he arrives, he discovers that the caretaker of the mansion has been found hanging from an oak tree near the decrepit house, in what is apparently a suicide. But as he tries to concentrate on the novel that should launch him back to fame, Ferragut will discover that there are people in the village willing to kill to gain access to what has been hidden for years in the basement of the mansion.