#1 - The Dragon Queen
It is that time known as the Dark Ages, the Romans have abandoned Britain's shores, leaving behind a brutal, fear-filled twilight world where magic and superstition, strife and warfare hold sway. Into this world is born the daughter of a pagan queen. Her name is Guinevere and to the all-seeing, power-hungry sorceror Merlin, she represents a grave threat. Sent into hiding in the remote north, she grows up under the protection of a shape-shifting wolf and a wayward druid, watched over by dragons - yet through his dark arts, Merlin tracks her down. He knows her destiny and will stop at nothing to prevent what has been foretold. For if Guinevere becomes queen and Arthur, king, together they will bring a peace to the land that will leave the sorcerer but a shrivelled and empty old magiciain in a weary cloak. What Merlin doesn't realise is that Guinevere has inherited dazzling powers of her own. With Arthur trapped in a netherworld from which the only escape is death, Guinevere must call upon the ancient, primal spirits and beings who walked this earth when it was still young to help her in her final confrontation with the High Druid himself...
Dark, exciting, highly original and utterly compelling, THE DRAGON QUEEN is set in a brutal, grittily and historically authentic Celtic world where the Pagan and the Christian battle for supremacy. Full of wild magic, both benign and malign, romance, superstition, wonder, bloody battles and wonderfully well-wrought characters, and written with a fresh, contemporary voice, this novel turns the legend of King Arthur and his mercurial queen well and truly on its head.
Dark, exciting, highly original and utterly compelling, THE DRAGON QUEEN is set in a brutal, grittily and historically authentic Celtic world where the Pagan and the Christian battle for supremacy. Full of wild magic, both benign and malign, romance, superstition, wonder, bloody battles and wonderfully well-wrought characters, and written with a fresh, contemporary voice, this novel turns the legend of King Arthur and his mercurial queen well and truly on its head.
#2 - The Raven Warrior
Born of the Highlands, along shores washed by northern seas, Guinevere has accepted the power offered to her by the Dragon Throne and been crowned Queen.
Her first duty must be to her homeland and her people, to protect them from the reviled Saxon raiders. Instinct tells her she must strike first or surrender control of the seas, but her chieftains and warlords refuse to accept that their new queen, barely a woman, can know anything of the art of war and offer her an army of misfits and outcasts. Young and untried, Guinevere knows she cannot - must not - fail. Sailing to confront the hated enemy with only this motley band of ill-equipped fighters at her side, she summons the spirits of the dead. But there is a terrible price to pay for their help - a knowledge that will change her utterly.
As Guinevere faces the first great test of her reign, so her childhood companion, Black Leg - the shape-shifting son of her adoptive father - begins his own quest to become a man and warrior worthy of this new queen. In his wanderings, he will endure trials both mental and physical, discover inner strengths and, with the Lady of the Lake, primal passions, each experience more perilous, more terrifying, than the last. And when he and Guinevere are finally reunited, the consequences of both their ordeals will unleash a torrent of anguish and desire. For he is the Raven Warrior, the one who will be called Lancelot...
Set during the dark age when history and myth collide, The Raven Warrior continues Alice Borchardt's breathtaking re-imagining of the timeless tale of a king called Arthur and, of course, of his mercurial queen, Guinevere.
Her first duty must be to her homeland and her people, to protect them from the reviled Saxon raiders. Instinct tells her she must strike first or surrender control of the seas, but her chieftains and warlords refuse to accept that their new queen, barely a woman, can know anything of the art of war and offer her an army of misfits and outcasts. Young and untried, Guinevere knows she cannot - must not - fail. Sailing to confront the hated enemy with only this motley band of ill-equipped fighters at her side, she summons the spirits of the dead. But there is a terrible price to pay for their help - a knowledge that will change her utterly.
As Guinevere faces the first great test of her reign, so her childhood companion, Black Leg - the shape-shifting son of her adoptive father - begins his own quest to become a man and warrior worthy of this new queen. In his wanderings, he will endure trials both mental and physical, discover inner strengths and, with the Lady of the Lake, primal passions, each experience more perilous, more terrifying, than the last. And when he and Guinevere are finally reunited, the consequences of both their ordeals will unleash a torrent of anguish and desire. For he is the Raven Warrior, the one who will be called Lancelot...
Set during the dark age when history and myth collide, The Raven Warrior continues Alice Borchardt's breathtaking re-imagining of the timeless tale of a king called Arthur and, of course, of his mercurial queen, Guinevere.