JACK AND MO — Mark Freeman

Two young men. Two journeys. Two shipwrecks.When the discovery of a Saxon sword hilt on an island off Helsinki is announced on the internet, Stuart Richardson, an unfulfilled museum curator recognises it could be a relic of the Battle of Hastings. But why so far away? If true it would change his life.The story unfolds of Jack, a 15th century country boy who joins a ship and carries the sword hilt to the Baltic, and his 21st century counterpart Mo, an asylum seeker who discovers it on a beach cleaning project in Finland.Stuart's integrity is challenged as he has to justify the authenticity of the find when it is over a thousand miles from where it should be. His mental health is affected. Or are his symptoms due to a spell cast upon him?'A haunting and richly textured novel that shows how the past informs the present. What has been lived may live with us still.'Alan Judd, award-winning author of A Fine Madness.The novel has themes of migration, PTSD, the repatriation of museum objects and witchcraft.