King's Blood - Softcover

Judith Tarr has written over 30 novels. A graduate of Yale and Cambridge Universities, she holds degrees in ancient and medieval history, and breeds Lipizzan horses at her home, Dancing Horse Farm.

Tarr continues her gripping alternate history of Britain under William the Conqueror and his sons, bringing to life familial power struggles within the larger context of a nation torn between Saxon Christianity and ancient magic. The Conqueror, a Norman whose rise to power and loosening of the Saxon-Christian hold on Britain Tarr artfully depicted in Rite of Conquest (2004), is gone; his son and heir Red William now determines to eliminate the magic that figured in his father's reign but is now a waning force. The consequent decline throughout the land throws Britain's fate into the hands of the Otherworld, in which the Old Things struggle to right things despite "stretches of emptiness where earth and water and air were deadly to anything made of magic." Can the imprisoned Scottish princess, Edith, and the Conqueror's youngest son, Henry, bring forth magical powers to save the land from pestilence? Tarr continues to blend meticulous historical research and character-driven adventure fantasy so as to satisfy her present fans and garner new ones. Whitney Scott
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