From Kirkus Reviews
A first hardcover in which a love affair of erotic discovery and passion is staged against a background of horror and ancient rites in 12th-century Wales--and brought to a gripping conclusion in a chase through fantastic underground caverns. In the Prologue, two small children, the boy Mychael and his twin sister Ceridwen, are lost in the caves beneath the castle of Carn Merioneth as their mother, descendent of a priestess, is about to perform a rite to ``open the door between worlds.'' But then death and horror arrive in the terrifying person of the vicious Caradoc, ``the Boar,'' who kills all and becomes the new lord of Carn Merioneth. The children are whisked away by a Druid's daughter and sent to be raised in the homes of devout Christians. When she's mature, Ceridwen is affianced to Caradoc but flees into the forest, where she's captured and taken to the Castle Wydehaw. There, she's derisively tortured and displayed. The sorcerer Dain, who works his ``magic'' in a tower of the castle, has no interest in Ceridwen but hates Caradoc, and so rescues the girl and begins to heal her. Mutual uninterest, even dislike, evolves into a fascination with the delicious complexities of each other. Onward, then, comes Caradoc. A ruse, planned by Dain, derails his pursuit, and the pair escape, on the way becoming lovers in some luxuriously steamy scenes. The chase is lengthy and studded with such elements as: the strategy and antics of the allied ``Quicken-tree'' people, of ancient (perhaps faerie?) origins; struggles through caves of ice and utter darkness; fantastic beauty and horror; the pryf (giant sea worms); and a magic door leading to the sea. By the close, there have deaths of varying nastiness (how about being ground between walls and a pryf?)--and a lovers' escape. A heated romance and chase in a splashy, scary setting. And those pryf are a gas. --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Product Description
In the blockbuster tradition of Diana Gabaldon, award-winning author Glenna McReynolds makes her stunning hardcover debut with a wondrous and wholly original tale. Shimmering with breathtaking romance, fantasy, and adventure,
The Chalice and the Blade sweeps you into a rare world of ancient magic, fierce passion, and evil intention--a world that once entered will not soon be forgotten.
The place is twelfth-century Wales, a land of forbidding castles and ferocious knights, sacred prophecies and unholy betrayals. In the bowels of the earth, deep in the caverns below the towers of Carn Merioneth, dragon nests await the arrival of one who holds the key to an ancient legacy.
She is Ceridwen, daughter of a Druid priestess, unaware of her immense power--until fate leads her from the safety of a secluded abbey into the unbreachable tower of a feared sorcerer. Dain Lavrans knows he has no magic in himself, only the secrets of medicine he uncovered while a soldier in the Crusades. But with the appearance of Ceridwen, he will finally behold true--and terrifying--magic.
For there are many who seek the maiden, none for her own good and all meaning to use her. Carodoc, the dreaded warlord whose father slaughtered her people and left her orphaned, wants her as his bride so he can claim the riches rumored to lie beneath Carn Merioneth. Helebore, a depraved ex-monk once sentenced to death for his sins, wants her blood so he can unlock the dark mystery of time. Rhuddlan, leader of the wild folk of the woods, wants her to take her rightful place as decreed by ancient prophecy. Dain simply wants the ethereal Ceri, for himself alone. Now a battle of epic proportion is about to take place. And at the center of the clash of power stand Ceridwen and Dain, struggling to escape the dangers and snares set by friend and foe alike, while discovering that neither can resist the love that promises to bind them forever.
Weaving a spell of fantastical imagination and the all-too-human world of passion and evil,
The Chalice and the Blade is unique and unforgettable, a sumptuous novel by one of today's most stirring storytellers.
