Candace G. (Ogre) reviewed on 12/22/2016 + 1568 more book reviews

This is a kind of 'quest-coming of age' book, although the participants are adults. Traditional elements braided together with the unique McKillip twist.

From inside cover: During the wedding festivities of his king, Cyan Dag, a knight of Gloinmere, is sought out by a mysterious bard and told a terrifying tale: that the king has married a false queen -- a lie cloaked in an ancient and powerful sorcery. Spurred on by his steadfast honor and loyalty, Cyan departs on a dangerous quest to rescue the real queen from her tower prison, to prevent war, and to awaken magic in a land that has lost its way...

"McKillip's irredescent prose cloaks a simple quest with effervescing images and tantalizing, shifting arpeggios of shapes, as a Celtic triple goddess spins and weaves Cyan Dag's fate. By showing that out of her hero's forgotten gesture of mercy in battle long ago came hope, compassion, peace, McKillip concurs with the poet Rilke that perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love." --Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

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