In the shadow of King Arthur's Britain, one woman knows the truth that could save a kingdom from the hands of a tyrant... Ancient grudges, old wounds, and the quest for power rule in the newly widowed Queen Isolde's court. Hardly a generation after the downfall of Camelot, Isolde grieves for her slain husband, King Constantine, a man she secretly knows to have been murdered by the scheming Lord Marche -- the man who has just assumed his title as High King. Though her skills as a healer are renowned throughout the kingdom, in the wake of Con's death, accusations of witchcraft and sorcery threaten her freedom and her ability to bring Marche to justice. Burdened by their suspicion and her own grief, Isolde must conquer the court's distrust and superstition to protect her throne and the future of Britain. One of her few allies is Trystan, a prisoner with a lonely and troubled past. Neither Saxon nor Briton, he is unmoved by the political scheming, rumors, and accusations swirling around the fair queen. Together they escape, and as their companionship turns from friendship to love, they must find a way to prove what they know to be true -- that Marche's deceptions threaten not only their lives but the sovereignty of the British kingdom. In Twilight of Avalon, Anna Elliott returns to the roots of the legend of Trystan and Isolde to shape a very different story -- one based in the earliest written versions of the Arthurian tales -- a captivating epic brimming with historic authenticity, sweeping romance, and the powerful magic of legend.

    As the Saxon pillagers sweep ever farther west, young Baradoc, Roman army veteran & son of a British tribal chief, meets Tia, a Roman girl fleeing the troubles. Their son Arturo, a child hugely endowed with wildness, blarney & arrogance, grows up to inherit his father's dream of uniting Britain against the Saxons. The story is chiefly concerned with the slow building of his campaign, from his early rebellion against the delaying tactics of the anti-Saxon forces to the great victory of Mt Badon. Like many imaginers of an earlier Britain, Canning is best when describing the wild countryside & the homely skills of its inhabitants. His attempts to graft this material onto the Grail legend are effortful platitudes. Merlin appears & disappears at climactic moments, saying things like "Only the gods know that." Speeches are peppered with ritual interjections of "Aie..." to indicate deep thought. People look at each other & instinctively know something, or undergo some tremendous change "from that moment"...Canning's Arturo does occasionally come to life during his stormy childhood in the Tribe of the Enduring Crow; once he is grown, one feels that Canning, like Sir Bedivere, has lost sight of the barge.--Kirkus Beginning note: "At the time of this story—roughly 450 AD—any effective Roman presence in Britain had long gone. The shadow of the Dark Ages—which were to last nearly 300 years—had already fallen across the country. The Saxon mercenaries, hired originally to fight against the Pictish invasions from the North, were now breaking out of the lands granted to them in the East. Constantly reinforced by more of their kind they were beginning to sweep westwards across the country, massacring & pillaging, to make it their own." Postscript: "Although there are no incontrovertible facts about King Arthur, the renown of his life & deeds in the Dark Ages was lodged for over 600 years in folk memory. & folk, being what they are, invariably alter & embroider a good story. Wm of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth & then Sir Thomas Malory were landed with the result. Lesser as well as better writers have followed them. Acknowledging that I come in the first of these two categories, I feel no shame in entering the lists poorly armed but securely mounted on a horse I have ridden for years called Imagination."

    When Gawain, King Arthur's handsome and promiscuous nephew, saves a beautiful maiden from a sorcerer, will his love be able to overcome the forces of evil?Risa of the Morelands was cursed even before she was born. While returning from King Arthur's coronation, her father made a deal with an evil necromancer named Euberacon to save his beloved dying wife. In return for his wife's health, the sorcerer asks for the life of the child growing inside her womb. Her father accepts the deal and thus dooms the unborn Risa to a life of unthinkable depravity.Now a beautiful 19-year-old with red-gold hair, Risa confronts her father after another suitor is turned away. When he eventually tells her about his deal with the sorcerer, she runs away -- only to be caught by Euberacon. Gawain fatefully witnesses the assault, saves Risa, and falls in love with her. But when Euberacon turns Risa into a monstrosity, will Gawain's love be enough to defeat a sorcerer, a pagan god, and all the naysayers at Camelot?Like many Arthurian stories, In Camelot's Shadow is a tale about honor -- its moral obligations and all its unintended consequences -- but ultimately it is a story about the power of love. Lyrical, heartwarming, and engaging until the very last page, this novel is highly recommended for fans of romantic fantasy as well as Arthurian legend and lore. Paul Goat Allen

    Merlin must do something before the king is betrayed, or murdered, or--worst of all--gets married. So Merlin creates a trick: a sword magically placed into a slab of rock that only Arthur can withdraw. Then he lets it be known that whosoever removes the blade will rule all of England, and invites any man who would dare, to try to pull out the sword.But then someone else pulls the sword out first. . . .

    Raised on a Sioux reservation, she was educated at boarding schools that enforced assimilation and was witness to major events in white-Indian relations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tapping her troubled personal history, Zitkala-Sa created stories that illuminate the tragedy and complexity of the American Indian experience. In evocative prose laced with political savvy, she forces new thinking about the perceptions, assumptions, and customs of both Sioux and white cultures and raises issues of assimilation, identity, and race relations that remain compelling today.

    Little is known of her but she was probably the Abbess of the abbey at Shaftesbury in the late 12th century, illegitimate daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and hence the half-sister of Henry II of England. It was to a king, and probably Henry II, that she dedicated these poems of adventure and love which were retellings of stories which she had heard from Breton minstrels. She is regarded as the most talented French poet of the medieval period.

    This bilingual edition, a parallel text in Old French and English, is based on a reexamination of the Old French manuscript, and makes Silence available to specialists and students in various fields of literature and women's studies.     The Roman de Silence, an Arthurian romance of the thirteenth century, tells of a girl raised as a boy, equally accomplished as a minstrel and knight, whose final task, the capture of Merlin, leads to her unmasking.

    Embries—better known as “Merlin”—informs a young captain that he is next in line to the throne. For James Arthur Stuart is not the commoner he has always believed himself to be—he is Arthur, the legendary King of Summer, reborn. But the road to England’s salvation is dangerous, with powerful enemies waiting in ambush. For Arthur is not the only one who has returned from the mists of legend. And Merlin’s magic is not the only sorcery that has survived the centuries.AVALON“A rousing postscript to Lawhead’s bardic Pendragon Cycle . . . Playing off snappy contemporary derring-do against the powerful shining glimpses of the historical Arthur he created, Lawhead pulls off a genuinely moving parable of good and evil.”—Publishers Weekly

    The time is ripe for a warrior-king who will unite this wounded realm -- and a young centurion courageously answers the call. name is Artorius Pendragon -- and it is his destiny conquer with indomitable iron. A man flawed, filth and painfully mortal -- a clear-eyed leader with a strong distaste for war's necessary cruelties -- he will know a glory unparalleled in historical annals...an ultimately, will lose his heart and his kingdom to greatest betrayal of all.

    these tales constitute a powerful work of the imagination, ranking with Tokien's Lord of the Rings novels and T.H. White's The Once and Future King. Evangeline Walton's compelling rendition of these classic, thrilling stories of magic, betrayal, lost love, and bitter retribution include the encounter between Prince Pwyll and Arawn, the God of Death, which Pwyll survives by agreeing to kill the one man that Death cannot fell, and the tale of bran the blessed and his family's epic struggle for the throne.The Mabinogion is internationally recognized as the world's finest arc of Celtic mythology; Walton's vivid retelling introduces an ancient world of gods and monsters, heroes, kings and quests, making accessible one of the greatest fantasy sagas of all time.

    Gwenhwyfar moves in a world where gods walk among their pagan worshipers, where nebulous visions warn of future perils, and where there are two paths for a woman: the path of the Blessing or the rarer path of the Warrior. Gwenhwyfar chooses the latter, giving up the power that she is born into. Yet the daughter of a King is never truly free to follow her own calling. Acting as the son her father never had, when called upon to serve another purpose by the Ladies of the Well, she bows to circumstances to become Arthur's Queen only to find herself facing temptation and treachery, intrigue and betrayal, but also love and redemption.

    What follows is a rich, nostalgic look at one of our most cherished national pastimes and a remarkable story about fathers and sons, love and family, and the inimitable joy of finding your way home.

    The Dragon and the Unicorn begins before the beginning of Time, as light first cools to matter, bearing within it the electron glow of lost Heaven. Attanasio's epic tale of a quest for immortality spans all history, human and demihuman, from the dung fires on the steppes to the snows of Himalayas, from the mudhut cities on the Euphrates to the glass and steel towers of tomorrow, from the hunt for the Unicorn's horn to the ceaseless wars of elf and dragon, Celt and Roman. It is a quest that end -- and begins -- in a legend-heavy place at the edge of the Western Sea, with the first cry of a King new born. A place called Tint gel. A King, the Heir Pendragon, called Eagle of Thor, or...Arthor.One of today's boldest, most imaginative, and most inventive authors, A. A. Attanasio unites all the legends of creation and redemption into a dream song as old as the druid chants, and as timeless as the quantum hum at creation's shinning heart.And so a new departure in epic fantasy takes flight.

    Now, at a veritable fairy-tale moment—witness the popular television shows Grimm and Once Upon a Time and this year’s two movie adaptations of “Snow White”—Philip Pullman, one of the most popular authors of our time, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm.From much-loved stories like “Cinderella” and “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Rapunzel” and “Hansel and Gretel” to lesser-known treasures like “Briar-Rose,” “Thousandfurs,” and “The Girl with No Hands,” Pullman retells his fifty favorites, paying homage to the tales that inspired his unique creative vision—and that continue to cast their spell on the Western imagination.

    Here all five volumes that make up the story are published in one volume, as White himself always wished. Exquisite comedy offsets the tragedy of Arthur′s personal doom as White brings to life the major British epic of all time with brilliance, grandeur, warmth and charm.