Originally posted at Fantasy Literature. We review SFF, horror, and comics for adults and kids, in print and audio daily. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...The Lady of Han-Gilen is the second novel in Judith Tarr’s AVARYAN saga. In the first book, The Hall of the Mountain King, we met Mirai...
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature. We review SFF, horror, and comics for adults and kids, in print and audio daily. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...In this third novel of Judith Tarr’s AVARYAN RISING trilogy (which probably could stand alone), it’s been 15 years since the events of ...
The inevitable clash between Christian and Saracen in the holy city of Jerusalem becomes a personal war between two immortal lovers as religious fanatics and political ambition conspire to thwart an act of conciliation that would unite two opposing faiths. Set in the alternate, magical 12th-centu...
An enjoyable, page-turning read. As someone who finds it depressing when Egypt ceased to be ruled by Egyptian pharaohs (however bad they were), the idea that the gods of Egypt have decided that Alexander is to be the next pharaoh was particularly lovely. The characters are enjoyable, and fascinat...
Alfred has settled down at last amongst his own people, as Lord Chancellor of Rhiyana. But old enemies will not let Alfred savor his new life, and he must prepare for the ultimate battle of wills against an evil whose power is even greater than his own.
Alfred is a monk of St. Ruan’s Abbey- devoted to his Brothers and his God, a scholar of rare talent, and very much more than a man. A foundling, he was taken in and raised by the Abbey as one of their own, and while his colleagues have grown to old men, he remains no more than a youth.The quiet A...
The Hound and the Falcon trilogy remains one of those that has survived my evolution into a super-picky reader, and is still among my favorite books. Sure, the angst of Alfred sometimes gets a little heavy--but unlike far too many novel characters, Alf has some pretty good reasons for being angst...
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...Every day, for years, the King of Ianon has stood on his castle’s battlements, hoping to see his daughter coming home. He is old and she is his heir. When someone finally arrives, the king is told that his daughter i...
The year is 1191. The place is the Holy Land, where the knights of Christ are embroiled in a war with the armies of Islam. The prize is the holy city of Jerusalem. Led by Richard the Lionheart, the armies of the West are conducting a Crusade against the sultan Saladin. In Cyprus, the king's mo...
Tarr presents a historical fantasy set in Egypt in the 12th century about a young man who is turned into a horse for punishment and must undergo harsh lessons in order to be returned to human form. "A bona fide turn-the-page tale".--Anne McCaffrey.
When Rowan, the emperor’s youngest daughter, discovers a magical plot to kill her father, she must overcome her fear of magic to save him. “An appealing work, lightly touched with genuine period detail but focusing more on a prickly preadolescent not-quite-friendship, family ties, and a girl’s re...
In this sequel to White Mare's Daughter, the people of the horse goddess once more face the threat of war. Generations ago, the people of the White Mare migrated westward, through the great forests, until they met and clashed with the people of the cities of the Mother. They brought war to the c...
So little is known about the Egypt of the Hyksos conquest that authors can arrange their plots pretty much as they choose, around a few known historical persons. Here Tarr has connected with Egypt's adoption of the horse and war chariot, which had been used by their foreign conquerors, to in turn...
This is a historical novel with elements of fantasy set around 6,000BC, around the time horses were first domesticated. I do find the pre-historical period fascinating. So much of what we think of as human originates in that period and I've found few novels set in that era other than Auel's serie...
To some extent, this is pretty standard fantasy. The dark vs. the light, and let's throw in the grail to spice things up a bit, and hey, have some battles and a pretty lady. Hell. Let's have nine pretty ladies. And some sex. To spice up our hero, he can do magic and he has yellow eyes!On the othe...
Judith Tarr takes the strange facts of the life of Queen Hatshepsut and builds from them a novel of great power. Here is the queen who loved her land too much to see it in the hands of one weak king after another -- and the woman who loved a commoner, and made him her chief servant, her architect...
The saga of Sarama, the beautiful, headstrong young priestess of a nomadic warrior band. Her majestic white horse is the earthly incarnation of the goddess Epona; her fateful odyssey to a great city where women still rule, unleashes an epic clash of cultures that changes the course of history.
A stunning new fantasy adventure in the acclaimed Avaryan ChroniclesHailed as "a sweeping saga, spiced with exciting, unexpected plot twists" (Publishers Weekly), Judith Tarr's richly imagined Avaryan fantasy series has gained a broad and devoted following that eagerly awaits each new book. The f...
Generations ago, two empires were united through the union of their respective scions. But the latest incumbent hates one-half of his heritage and so the lines of Sun and Lion are splintering. Unbeknownst to the rulers of the empire, in secret, a Lion heir has been protected and prepared to take ...
Magic is still the most powerful seducer of all as young monk Gilbert knows. He risks his soul as a sorcerer's apprentice, only to steal the magic books--and the Head. The Head prophesies the rise of his power, and it is shadowed by death.
The Emperor Estarion's long reign has finally brought peace, and even reconciliation, to the two warring halves of his Empire. But no Sun Lord can rest content in his triumph. Now Estarion and Vanyi, his Master of Mages, have the leisure to explore the rest of their wide world. Vanyi's Mage Guild...
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's an alternative history of the Christian Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of Baldwin IV and several years prior to Saladin's defeat of the Crusaders (between the Second and Third Crusades).[return][return]The tale follows Prince Aiden who arrive...
Nicole Gunther-Perrin is a modern young professional lawyer, proud of her skills but weary of the daily grind, of childcare, sexist coworkers, and her deadbeat ex-husband. Then after one exceptionally awful day, she awakens to find herself in a different life, that of a widowed tavernkeeper on th...
Norman ansestors were the Vikings.Hubris-a favorite word of the Greeks: arrogance that provokes the God's to anger.The Púca (also Pooka, Phouka, Púka, Glashtyn, Gruagach) is a creature of Irish and Welsh myth. It is one of the myriad of fairy (faery) folk, and, like many faery folk, is both respe...
I could put it back and walk away and avoid stealing it, and keep out of trouble. I could just sit there and let the world spin down the drain, too, taking everybody with it.Or I could borrow it. All right, steal it, but I’d put it back when I was done. There were so many in that box, and hundred...
There was once in the land of Egypt a most wise and learned wazir, as renowned for his mercy as for his justice, whom even his enemies honored with the name of incorruptible. Egypt, it was said, was blessed in its sultan; the sultan was blessed in his wazir; and the wazir was blessed in his wives...
She wasn’t a small woman, but they dwarfed her. Aisha and Rama were not taken prisoner, exactly, but while Aisha was distracted with her aunt, they acquired their own large and imposing escort. Instead of marines they had Psycorps—and that made Aisha’s skin crawl and the sun inside her shoot out ...
It struck like a bolt of the gods. The earth shook. The oak swayed as if in a gale. The mountains trembled; deep in their hearts, fire called to fire. Too late Polyxena snatched at the powers she had loosed. The ground beneath her pitched and rocked. Somewhere perilously close, she heard the crac...