Pilgrims in Love

Frances Beer’s Pilgrims in Love involves a re-visioning of the Canterbury Tales, told from the point of view of Alison, Wife of Bath, and Eglentyne, Prioress. Both undertake the pilgrimage to Canterbury because of personal crises that they face as they approach middle age. In the course of their journey they grow out of the straight-jackets that have been imposed on them by medieval misogyny, become wiser and more compassionate. They learn to love others, and most importantly, themselves. “This novel has everything Chaucer would have loved. Like The Canterbury Tales, of which it is a richly inventive reinterpretation, it is by turns bawdy, rowdy, tender, hilarious and moving. The female narrators are captivating, their surprising relationship an exotic flower of sisterhood.” ~John Unrau, D. Phil., Oxon, Professor of English, York University and author of Looking at Architecture with Ruskin, Ruskin and St. Mark’s, and Iced Tea, a book of poems.