Linda Davies

Linda Davies is a British novelist whose work ranges from financial thrillers to historical fantasy for younger readers. Longbow Girl follows Merry Owen, a skilled teenage archer living on her family's struggling farm beneath the Black Castle in the Welsh mountains. A buried manuscript and a mysterious river carry Merry into the reign of Henry VIII, where an archery contest may determine whether her ancestors keep their land. James de Courcy, heir to the neighboring family with whom the Owens have long feuded, follows her across time, complicating inherited loyalties in both centuries. Chicken House published the British edition in 2015, and Scholastic released the North American edition in 2016. Longbow Girl became Davies's debut for younger readers and won the Mal Peet Children's Award in Wales. Its adventure grows from landscape and family memory rather than from time travel alone. Davies makes Merry's command of the longbow practical knowledge passed through generations, then asks whether understanding the past can release two families from repeating it.