"A lovely, immersive, elegiac novel for a lost way of life. I revelled in the author’s gorgeous descriptions of the natural world and her knowledge of the arts of dyeing cloth using native plants, and felt as if I learned a lot from her extensive research" - Jane Johnson, author of The Black Crescent and Court of LionsThe Binding meets Weyward in this evocative 17th-century page-turnerJoan’s future looks bleak, but her new skill gives it colour…When Joan discovers her father has drunk away the family’s money, she starts to master the beautiful but tough art of cloth-dying, desperate to save her family from poverty.As her success builds, her isolation grows too - her profession stirs whispers of witchcraft, and her rivalry with her sister, Alice, deepens. But she is determined to rebuild her family’s reputation and as the colours soak into her cloth, hope starts to seep into her life too.