Showing results by author "Judith Tarr" in All Categories

In ancient Egypt, a woman might be king - but the price she paid would bind her soul for eternity. Hatshepsut, the Great Royal Wife, is bound in marriage to her brother, Thutmose, whom she despises. When the king dies while his son is yet a child, Hatshepsut raises herself from queen regent to ruling king. And all the while, the royal heir, the son of the concubine, watches and waits.

Egypt's long history has no more mysterious reign than that of Akhenaton, disciple of the One God, the Aten. Akhenaton abolished the worship of all other gods in Egypt and built a city devoted to the Aten, ruling for a decade of increasing civil unrest. Without a son of his own, he was forced to accept his brother, Smenkhkare, as co-pharaoh. The story unfolds through the eyes of Nofret, a slave girl, who comes to know more of the king and of his city than most.

The king's heir of Ianon is long lost, vanished into the south. Her father refuses to name his son heir in her place, though that son is a mighty warrior. Then one day a young wanderer arrives with news that both breaks and heals the king's heart: His heir is dead, but before she died, she gave birth to a son. That child, now grown, has come to take her place. But the king's son will not surrender his hope of kingship to a boy without a father, though he claims to be the son of a god.

In the dawn of time, women ruled, and the people had no word for war. Then the horsemen came. Sarama is the last of the White Mare's servants, descended from an ancient line conquered long ago by warrior tribes. Her father is the king of one such tribe. Her twin brother Agni is the king's heir. But she is heir to an older world, and a different way.

Historical fact and fantastic legend clash when Merlin's descendant Roland takes up the Quest for the Grail against Arthur's ancient enemy - a thrilling new adventure from an extraordinary talent whose appeal is growing fast with each new book....

Alfred of St. Ruan's has lived his life in the seclusion of the monastery. But a badly wounded knight on a mission from the Elvenking, a beautiful and mysterious stranger who walks as both woman and beast, and a warrior king call him out of the cloister's walls into the wars and storms of the world. For he is neither mortal nor human, though he has long tried to live as both; and he can deny neither his nature nor his powerful magic.

A knight from across the sea, a beleaguered kingdom, a spirit of fire with a deadly secret - Judith Tarr's beloved novel of grand romance and high magic in the age of the Crusades appears for the first time in digital form. Join Prince Aidan, son of a mortal king and an immortal enchantress, and the deathless Assassin Morgiana, in a saga of war and truce, betrayal and honor, hate and love.

Book View Cafe celebrates its fifth anniversary with an anthology of our favorite stories. From the fantasy and science fiction of our roots to steampunk, romance, historical and mainstream; from humor to life's hardest challenges, across the spectrum from light to dark.

For a long, brutal century, the Kingdom of Lower Egypt has been occupied by the "Vile Asiatics", the conquerors called the Shepherd Kings. With their horses and chariots, they overwhelmed the armies of Egypt and swept over the Delta and the sacred cities. Iry, daughter of an old noble house, the Sun Ascendant, has been enslaved by the bearded conquerors. But her new master is born of a different blood, son of the priestess of an ancient rite, the cult of the Horse Goddess and her avatar, the White Mare.

The life and times of Melisende, the crusader queen of Jerusalem, regent to her young son, the king, during the 12th century, come to life through the eyes of Lady Richildis, a young Frankish woman on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, who becomes one of Melisende's confidantes.

Alfred of St. Ruan's Abbey is a monk and a scholar, a religious man whose vocation is beyond question. But Alfred is also, without a doubt, one of the fair folk, for though he is more than seventy years old by the Abbey's records, he seems to be only a youth. But Alfred is drawn from the haven of his monastery into his dangerous currents of politics when an ambassador from the kingdom of Rhiyana to Richard Coeur de Leon is wounded and Alfred himself is sent to complete the mission.

In the time of the Crusades, in a world at war, a prince of immortal lineage and a spirit of fire who was once an assassin prepare to celebrate a royal wedding. But he is Christian and she is Muslim, and there are those who hate them not only for their disparate faiths but for their power and magic.

Red William, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, has inherited the throne and a kingdom free of Saxon Christian influence. But his decision to leave magic out of his rule causes the land to wither and die. Now the fate of Britain lies in the hands of Edith, princess of Scotland, and Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror. Both are highly gifted in magic, but only the blood of a king will cleanse the land from the evil and pestilence that infects it.

In the grandfathers' time, when few yet living had been born, the People worshipped the horse, and served him, and took the gifts that he gave them: his meat, his hide, the milk of his mares. But he had not yet granted to men the greatest gift of all: the gift of riding on his back, and racing the wind. Sparrow is a shaman's daughter in a tribe that forbids women to be kings, to be shamans, to be anything but silent and tractable servants to the all-powerful men.

Long years after the White Mare came to the people of the Mothers, bringing the wild horsemen from the sea of grass and changing the world forever, the world is changing again. The Mother of Lir is dead, her heir cast out amid dire omens. War is coming - such a war as the people have never seen, fought with a new and terrible weapon: the chariot. Rhian, potter's child and White Mare's chosen, ventures with Emry the prince of Lir into the sea of grass and undertakes to steal the enemy's weapon.

In 336 B.C., Egypt lies under the yoke of Persia. But a spirit of fire has risen to blaze across the world. His name is Alexander, and he is the destined conqueror of the Persian Empire - and the king foretold of Egypt. Meriamon, daughter of the last Pharaoh, journeys out of the Two Lands to find him and bring him home. From the battlefield of Issus to the siege of Tyre, from the founding of Alexandria to the divine revelations of Siwah, Meriamon both leads and follows her divine charge, who becomes her friend and her chosen king.

Gerbert was a farmer's son in an obscure town in France, but his gifts of mind and intellect were so remarkable that even in the feudal world of the tenth century, he could rise far above his station. Princes and prelates courted him; emperors called him friend and teacher. He brought the lost art of mathematics back into Europe; he was an astronomer, a musician, a builder of strange and wonderful devices. In the end he reached the pinnacle of the world, a seat so lofty and an authority so great that he answered only to God Himself. But Gerbert was more than a simple professor of the mathematical arts, or even a prince of the Church.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, heir to the throne won by Alexander the Great: she was the most powerful woman of the ancient Mediterranean, and the only person standing between Rome and its dominion over the world. She was wife to Julius Caesar, and bore his only son. After his death she took Mark Antony, Caesar's greatest general, as lover and consort, and as her partner in a vast political enterprise. Together they strove to unite Egypt and Rome under one throne.

Constantinople, A.D. 1203: a great army camps outside the City of Cities, and threatens it with conquest. Within the City, a Greek witch and a renegade monk who is also a white enchanter do their utmost to hold back the tides of war. But even their great powers may not be able to save Byzantium’s empire from the Western Crusade.

Kidnapped, tortured, betrayed by his brothers whom he loved, the heir of the Golden Empire has lost everything but his life. His only hope is a chance encounter, a wandering priest from the Empire of the Sun. But the priest is more than he seems, and the prince is stronger than he knew; and war is coming. Two empires hang in the balance. Two emperors will fall, unless the prince and his unwelcome ally find a way to make peace. But peace comes at a price; and that price may be too high for either to pay.