Gatty is a fifteen year-old field girl, living in the West Country in 1203. She is about to be sent off on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the biggest journey of her life.

This was a very hard book to get into; the first few chapters are very slow, so I stopped reading for about two weeks to read another book. After that I thought I might as well read it or soon enough it would be overdue at the library, making it a pointless borrow. I could tell that Kevin Crossley-Holland was an absolutely fantastic author, but the choice of the story wasn’t really my cup of tea.

The main part of the story happens in the middle of the book, in Venice. The challenges have become more and more difficult for Gatty and her fellow pilgrims; and much of the story happens here.

This book is for those who are patient and don’t mind having a lot of irrelevant information put in their heads. I would say don’t give this to someone younger than a thirteen year-old, no matter how high their reading age is, as this book can be much of a bore. The ending was rather ill-thought out and it wasn’t very convincing for me.

I will look forward to Crossley-Holland’s next book, because for me I think his story could have been much better, as I couldn’t really relate to any of the characters.

I would say this book is about a 5/10.