Mightily appealing.
Adventure in ancient Scotland that’s a potent mix of historical fiction, druid-tinged fantasy, and romance.
With nods to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, newcomer Watson presents an ancient Scotland peopled by strong-minded women and powered by ancient, goddess-based magic. Redheaded Rhiann is the last of the royal line of the Epidii tribe, the tribe’s “Ban Cre,” charged with producing an heir; she’s a healer, trained in her art in the all-female environs of the Sacred Isle; and she’s an unwilling rival for her tribe’s power-hungry chief druid. She’s also one of the few local leaders who can see that the Roman army is a force that must be reckoned with; most other tribal headmen are counting on the geographic isolation of Scotland (here called “Alba”) to protect it from General Agricola’s advancing red-clad menace. Rhiann has enough vision to realize that unless the tribes of Alba band together, Agricola will pick them off one by one. Luckily, her husband, one Eremon of Erin (Ireland), who was chosen to be her partner in an arranged marriage, is in accord. Together, the two prepare to convince the other kings of the wisdom of partnership. Meanwhile, there’s the difficult business of offspring: Rhiann had a bad experience with raiders and can’t stand a man’s touch. And Eremon has troubles of his own: he’s hiding the fact that he and his 20 loyal followers were banished from Erin by his treacherous uncle. There are plenty of plotlines, but Watson keeps them nicely dovetailed and tightly laced with romantic tension, treachery, and cliffhangers aplenty. She’s done her homework, boning up on Tacitus for historical detail and verisimilitude, but there’s imagination here, too, and the work’s all the better for it.
Mightily appealing.Pub Date: March 31, 2005
ISBN: 1-58567-620-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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