Rachel Billington has received extraordinary

acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic for her writ-

ing style, her penetrating characterizations, and

her gift of invention. Now, in Theo and Matilda,

she embarks in an exciting new direction.

Theo and Matilda is a lovestory played out

over the ages, a compelling, multilayered novel

about five different couples, all named Theo and

Matilda, whose romances span more than

twelve centuries:

~ In the year 770, in England, a young man

named Theo is taken into the Abbeyfields mon-

astery because he has the gift of song. There he

finds his love, Princess Matilda.

. In 1540, agents of King Henry VIII attack

the bastions of Catholicism. A young woman

named Matilda Whitfield meets Brother Theo-

dore, a monk who has nearly lost his faith.

~ In 1880, Theo and Matilda are the proprie-

tors of a sprawling Victorian mansion, Abbey-

fields H.all. Busy with a brood of children, they

feel an increasing distance from each other.

~ A hundred years later, around 1980, Abbey-

fields has become a psychiatric hospital, where

Theo and Matilda are patients.

~ Today, Abbeyfields is a modern condomin-

ium complex. A new Theo and Matilda have

come home in search of a kinder page of history

on which to write their story.

Rachel Billington plays freely with time but

never with place as she deftly links the fates of

the five couples in the broad context of history.

Richly imagined, witty, and surprising, Theo

and Matilda is a poignant novel suggesting the

eternal nature of love.