Book picks similar to
The Firebrand by Debra A. Kemp


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The Circle Cast: The Lost Years of Morgan Le Fay


Alex Epstein - 2011
    As Morgan comes of age, she discovers her own magical powers. One day she falls in love with a young Irish chieftain. But will her drive for revenge destroy her chance for love and happiness?

Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur


Ruth Nestvold - 2009
    The bonfire is a part of history, but the princess is a part of legend."Tristan and Isot, Tristram and Isolde, Essyllt and Drust, Yseult and Drystan: the spellings have changed, but they have always been lovers - the greatest lovers the world has ever known. Most accounts of their story have begun with the man."This one begins with the woman."- From YSEULT For the price of a truce, Yseult is sent to a world where magic is dying - to marry the father of the man she loves. Marcus's son Drystan would have saved her from a loveless marriage, but with her relatives being held hostage, Yseult cannot endanger them and must go through with the wedding. The tragic love story of Yseult and Drystan plays out against the backdrop of a violent world threatening to descend into the Dark Ages - only Arthur's battles to push back the Saxon hordes can save what is left of civilization. With her background, Yseult could act as a bridge between the old age and the new - but will the price be too high?

Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit


Mercedes Lackey - 2009
    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.

The Crimson Chalice


Victor Canning - 1976
    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."

The Killing Way


Tony Hays - 2009
    Arthur is a young and powerful warrior who some would say stands on the brink of legend. Britain's leaders have come to elect a new supreme king, and Arthur is favored. But when a young woman is brutally murdered and the blame is placed at Merlin's feet, Arthur's reputation is at stake and his enemies are poised to strike. Arthur turns to Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a man whose knowledge of battle and keen insight into how the human mind works has helped Arthur come to the brink of kingship.Malgwyn is also the man who hates Arthur most in the world.After the death of Malgwyn's wife by Saxon hands, he became Mad Malgwyn, killer of Saxons and right-hand lieutenant to the warrior Arthur. Right hand, that is, until a Saxon cut his sword arm off and left him to die on the battlefield. Arthur rescued him. Now a one-armed scribe and a heavy drinker, Malgwyn rejects the half-life that his liege gave him. But loyalty is sometimes stronger than loathing...and Malgwyn is pulled toward a puzzle that he can't walk away from.

Ambrosius


David Pilling - 2014
    He bade me fight..." Britain, 427 AD. Rome has abandoned the province, leaving it exposed to waves of barbarian invasions. To the west, savage pirates from Hibernia ravage the coastline. In the north, the crumbling defences of the Wall cannot contain marauding bands of Picts as they sweep down from the highlands. Worst of all are the Saxons, the dreaded sea-wolves. Under their chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, they wish to drive out the native Britons and claim the entire island for their own. Attacked from all sides, the Britons find a champion in the form of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the last of the Romans. A modest man, riddled with doubts and fears, Ambrosius reluctantly takes on the mantle of Dux Bellorum, Leader of Battles. Placed in command of Britain's only standing army, he fights to preserve the dwindling light of civilisation while the treacherous High King, Vortigern, plots his destruction. Set before the coming of Arthur, the first book of the Leader of Battles trilogy charts the rise and fall of post-Roman Britain's first great hero, and his desperate struggle to hold back the shadows threatening to engulf his country.

Knight Life


Peter David - 1987
     King Arthur, the once and future King, has been called forth by the wizard Merlin to lead a land in turmoil-the United States of America. But with no throne to sit upon, Arthur must run for elective office-starting with the Mayorship of New York City...

Searching for Arthur


Donna Hosie - 2012
    Before he was taken to the magical Vale of Avalon, Arthur declared that one day he would return, when the kingdom of Logres was once more in need of his leadership.That day has now come.It is hard to make friends when you’re constantly on the move. Seventeen-year-old Natasha Roth’s father is a diplomat, and so her mother – who is paranoid about terrorists – has moved Natasha and her brother, Arthur, to their eighteenth house in seventeen years: Avalon Cottage, deep in the heart of a Welsh forest.Yet the terrorists are closer than they realize.While out running, Natasha falls into a hidden tomb and awakens the legendary knights of Camelot: young warriors who have been in an enchanted sleep for a thousand years. All have been waiting patiently for the return of Arthur from the mysterious land of Avalon.And now the knights are awake, they intend to reclaim their king.When Arthur goes missing, Natasha joins forces with his girlfriend, “Slurpy” Samantha, in order to look for him. Natasha believes Samantha has fewer brain cells than an amoeba; Samantha believes Natasha is a freak. Retracing Natasha’s original steps to the hidden tomb, they bicker their way into a Welsh mountain and beyond, to the realm of Logres where the Knights of the Round Table are rallying once more.Natasha falls in love with Sir Bedivere, the most loyal of knights to Arthur. He may be in dire need of a 21st Century razor, but he still possesses a set of lime-green eyes that can melt the soul. Yet just as Natasha starts to find confidence in this mystical land, Samantha deserts her. People who play by the rules are of no use to “Slurpy”. Samantha will take her own path to Arthur, aided and abetted by the dark arts which she willingly absorbs from a hot young stranger called Mordred.A race across magical yet deadly lands is on. Natasha battles dwarf-riders, dragons, and eventually “Slurpy” to reach Camelot, where Arthur is held captive by the barbarian Saxon, Balvidore.Natasha’s woes become numerous. What will happen to her and Arthur when the knights realise the eighteen-year-old boy they thought was their king, is in fact a math student with appalling taste in girls? Can two people with a one thousand year age gap really have a relationship? And for the love of all things holy, how is a girl supposed to ride bareback in a pair of skinny jeans?

Arthur Rex


Thomas Berger - 1978
    Thomas Berger has previously written "Little Big Man", "Killing Time" and "Changing the Past".

Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices


Swapna KrishnaDaniel M. Lavery - 2021
    Here you'll find the Lady of the Lake reimagined as an albino Ugandan sorceress and the Lady of Shalott as a wealthy, isolated woman in futuristic Mexico City; you'll see Excalibur rediscovered as a baseball bat that grants a washed-up minor leaguer a fresh shot at glory and as a lost ceremonial drum that returns to a young First Nations boy the power and the dignity of his people. There are stories set in Gilded Age Chicago, '80s New York, twenty-first century Singapore, and space; there are lesbian lady knights, Arthur and Merlin reborn in the modern era for a second chance at saving the world and falling in love--even a coffee shop AU.Brave, bold, and groundbreaking, the stories in Sword Stone Table will bring fresh life to beloved myths and give long-time fans a chance to finally see themselves in their favorite legends.

The Dragon and the Unicorn


A.A. Attanasio - 1994
    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.

The Dragon Queen


Alice Borchardt - 2001
    He was magnificent, and I will never forget that, in that moment, I first loved him. And I believe--had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives--I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then . . .In a sweeping epic of the imagination, Alice Borchardt enters the wondrous realm of Arthurian legend and makes it her own. The Dragon Queen is the first volume in a trilogy of novels that boldly re-imagines Camelot--and casts Guinevere as a shrewd, strong-willed, magical warrior queen.Born into a world of terrible strife, where war is constant and weapons are never far from the hands of men or women, Guinevere, daughter of a mighty pagan queen, is a threat to her people and a prize to the dreaded sorcerer Merlin. Sent into hiding, she grows up under the protection of a shapeshifting man-wolf and an ornery Druid. But even on the remote coast of Scotland, where dragons feed and watch over her, she is not safe from the all-seeing High Druid Merlin. He knows the young beauty's destiny, and he will stop at nothing to prevent what has been foretold. For if Guinevere becomes Queen and Arthur, King, they will bring a peace to the land that will leave the power-hungry Merlin a shriveled magician in a weary cloak.Yet Guinevere possesses power of her own--dazzling power to rival even that of Merlin. Summoned from her home by forces she cannot fathom, she travels from the Underworld to an Otherworld of the Past, at each step calling on ancient powers to aid her way. When young Guinevere proves her mettle to an embarrassed Merlin, even her faithful dragon protectors cannot prevent the evil that the sorcerer rains down. Seeking revenge, Merlin banishes Arthur to a world from which the only escape is death. Now Guinevere must face Merlin's wrath without him--and prove that she is worthy of being Arthur's Queen.From the glass-roofed Great Hall at Tintigal to the lush garden forts of Wales, Alice Borchardt details the travels of Guinevere in a rich fabric of prose. The Dragon Queen is a novel of great emotional depth, timeless romance, and soul-stirring adventure.

Arthur


J.R. Rain - 2011
    A secret that could help usher in a new age of enlightenment for all mankind. Or so the legend goes....Plagued by months of persistent dreams of King Arthur, Merlin and the Holy Grail, mystery novelist James Dupree finally sets out to England to understand the meaning behind his nightly visions. Upon arriving in Glastonbury, a locale deeply connected to stories of Camelot, Avalon and the Knights of the Round Table, James quickly discovers that not all is as it seems in this quaint little town. There's a raven-haired girl dying of a rare lung disease, and strange knights with swords. Perhaps strangest of all is the familiar man who emerges from the forest...a man who just might be the greatest king Britain has ever seen. Something is happening in Glastonbury, something mysterious and powerful and not-of-this world, and somehow James Dupree is in the thick of it. Mankind is ready for the next great spiritual shift. But to do that, one man, one simple writer, must journey deep into the heart of a mystical land in search of a legendary relic. But there are others who seek the treasure...dark forces who will stop at nothing to keep it for themselves, and end Dupree's quest for good.At once inspiring and pulse-pounding, ARTHUR is for anyone who dares to dream—and dares to slay dragons.

Hawk of May


Gillian Bradshaw - 1980
    But the isle of immortals calls him on a quest as a warrior of the Light...and seals his destiny as the hero of King Arthur's Britain. Framed by historical realism, Gillian Bradshaw expertly weaves convincing magical elements into her fantastic tale of Gwalchmai, the Hawk of May.

Merlin: Part 1 - The Old Magic


James Mallory - 1999
    You'll think this is a fairy tale. And it isn't".In the terrible years of tyrants and invaders, England's surviving pagans cry out for help to their deity -- and Mab, Queen of the Faery realms, creates for them a champion.Merlin. Half human, half Magic; raised in the love of his foster mother, Ambrosia, trained in sorcery by the gnome Frick, destined by Mab to lead England back to the Old Ways. But Mab, once beloved, has grown selfish and cruel, so Merlin turns against her.And their war of magic will change the world.