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Pride of Kings
Pride of Kings
Author: Judith Tarr
"Tarr spins an entertaining and often enlightening tale." (The Washington Post) A powerful epic of two kings, two realms, and two wars for England to win-or lose. One could weaken the mortal empire. The other could destroy the world...
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ISBN-13: 9780451458476
ISBN-10: 0451458478
Publication Date: 9/1/2001
Pages: 451
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 14

3.5 stars, based on 14 ratings
Publisher: Roc
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

Bossmare avatar reviewed Pride of Kings on + 306 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Interesting take on the whole Richard the Lionheart/John Lackland feud. More about John as the high king (on the magic side) of Britain then Richard. Lots of magic, etc.
reviewed Pride of Kings on + 21 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
England's Richard the Lionheart, lusting for men, poetry and war in Palestine, sets off on a crusade, leaving his brother, Prince John, to look after the kingdom. Prompted by the ghost of a Saxon saint, who promises him "powers beyond the reach of mere mortal king," John agrees to seize the throne. The price is steep history will treat him as a traitor, a betrayer of his brother's trust but John truly loves Britain and its people, unlike Richard, and is thus a worthier monarch in the view of certain higher powers. Summoned to England to help John is the French youth Arslan ("lion" in Turkish). The son of a lord and a female spirit, Arslan moves readily between the faery and the human worlds.
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reviewed Pride of Kings on + 179 more book reviews
The fantastic may be subsidiary to fact in Tarr's (Kingdom of the Grail) latest historical fantasy, but it lends an eerily beautiful, sometimes frightening undercurrent to this engrossing, thoroughly satisfying novel, set in the late 12th century. England's Richard the Lionheart, lusting for men, poetry and war in Palestine, sets off on a crusade, leaving his brother, Prince John, to look after the kingdom. Prompted by the ghost of a Saxon saint, who promises him "powers beyond the reach of mere mortal king," John agrees to seize the throne. The price is steep history will treat him as a traitor, a betrayer of his brother's trust but John truly loves Britain and its people, unlike Richard, and is thus a worthier monarch in the view of certain higher powers. Summoned to England to help John is the French youth Arslan ("lion" in Turkish). The son of a lord and a female spirit, Arslan moves readily between the faery and the human worlds. Tarr smoothly blends a dazzling array of characters from both history and myth: Eleanor of Acquitaine, her "face still beautiful, like a wood in winter, stripped of all its softness"; Philip of France, who after abandoning Richard in Palestine seeks to invade Britain; "Robin o' the Wood... crowned with oak-leaves and carrying a great bow"; and the enchanted Lorelei, who wears "a woman's shape" but "the suppleness of its movements was not truly human."


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