CASTLEDOWN

by Joyce Ballou Gregorian ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 1977

More alliances and betrayals, ruses, rumors, and encounters, in that complex but lifeless Otherworld of Tredana that Sibby visited at age eleven in The Broken Citadel (1975). Now Sibby's Tredana cousin, prince Leron, is in exile; four false kings hold power; and Sibby, eighteen and a Radcliffe student, is called back to marry Leron and bear him the child who, according to prophesy, must be born before his rival's. Sibby does marry Leron, but her child is his ally Ajjibawr's--a result of a meddler's love potion though later they get together without that excuse. But overshadowing Sibby's marital and extramarital adventures (which always fade out discreetly with a tightening embrace) are the political machinations of a dense, eclectic cast--and, before Sibby is snatched from her husband and back to Cambridge, there is even a sea monster to contend with. Like The Broken Citadel it's all punctuated with ballads, missives, snatches of annals, chronicles, epics, etc. And there's bound to be more. Even if the elaborate network of bit players never does cohere, there's an ominous new weapon, the child Sibby leaves behind, another child who'll be heard from. . . . And what of Michael, Sibby's Harvard boyfriend to whom she becomes engaged on her return though he had participated in the Tredana interlude as a brutal kidnapper working for the enemy? Does it matter? Or is it all as arbitrary and inconsequential as the chess-like game of Castledown that gives the action its only hint of structure?

Pub Date: March 9, 1977

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1977

Categories: FICTION