 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
UK Authors - General fiction - |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Black Rood |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 The Black Rood:THE CELTIC CRUSADES BOOK II by Stephen Lawhead Harper Collins (Voyager) 437 pages, 2000 ISBN 000224666X Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde Like its predecessor The Iron Lance this is listed as fantasy although it certainly isn’t anything of the sort. Stephen Lawhead has written several fantasy titles and is known as a distinguished writer in this genre but recently he has turned to historical fiction and this is most definitely a historical novel. A couple of religious visions, as in the first book, make Black Rood a novel that would appeal to practising Christians and to anyone who likes a good story. This novel is a marvelous fast-paced adventure that Rider Haggard would have enjoyed. Murdo has built his kingdom in Caithness, and the narration is now taken up by his son Duncan who is married and has a young daughter. All is peaceful until his uncle Torf-Einar returns from the Holy Land to die. He tells the Ranulfssons that the Holy rood has been found and is in the hands of the Templars. Duncan has a vision and wishes to go on a pilgrimage to bring it back to Scotland. With him goes Padraig of the Cele De, a secret order which appears to be a cross between the Celtic church and the Freemasons. Once in the Holy Land, the pace heats up, and even though this isn’t a very short book, I was left wishing there had been more. Hashish-dazed assassins, battles, visions, luxurious eastern courts, terrible hardships, friendships of the true and false variety keep Duncan and Padraig more than busy. Although Lawhead intersperses the narrative with fragments from a late 19th century descendent’s diary that distract from the story, this is definitely a keeper. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||