Written by: Dorothy Dunnett
Submitted By: Ingrid Price
This is the first of six books collectively known as 'The Lymond Chronicles'. The others are: Queen's Play, The Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle and Checkmate. The books follow the life and fortunes of Francis Crawford of Lymond, the younger son of the Crawfords of Culter, fictional characters interwoven with the real events of the time in a story that begins in mid-sixteenth century Scotland and takes the reader on, with Francis, to France, the Ottoman Empire, Russia and England. Lymond is complex, quite brilliant and ostensibly indomitable, but as the consequences of his actions and his family history begin to unravel, he is drawn ever closer to a disastrous end from which it seems, he has no escape. If you like a long read, then, at over 3,000 pages, these books are a real treat and wonderfully written: "Lymond flung up his head, turned half around with the force of the explosion. The bow fell. For one second two he held fast to the broken coping, defying the heralds of agony and an easy darkness." And if you want to know more then, like Sharpe, Thomas and Uhtred, Lymond has his own pages on Wikipedia.
