Nicked: A Novel

AN NPR NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the award-winning and bestselling author of Feed comes a raucous, slyly funny, and delightfully queer work of historical fantasy, based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint

"[A] rollicking comic novel."—NPR

"The 11th century queer romantic adventure you didn’t know you were looking for."—Los Angeles Times

"Miracles, marvels, saints, sinners, love, plague, and treachery! A medieval feast of a novel, stuffed with everything I could have wished for."—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide.

What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.