AK Blakemore’s *Doom Painting* is an ambitious historical novel about the 16-day Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, when people across social classes rebelled against a poll tax and attacked the institutions and individuals who oppressed them. The reviewer praises its vivid, inventive prose and its expansive range of viewpoints, portraying both the rebellion’s violence and the lives of ordinary people with unusual intensity.

The novel follows figures including Wat Tyler and Richard II, as well as courtiers, rebels and even animals, while drawing on the period’s political and social turmoil. However, the review finds the characterisation and plotting less convincing than the language: Tyler’s personality and politics shift, Richard remains insufficiently developed, and some dialogue sounds like modern action-film banter in medieval dress.