Most Popular Books by Guy Gavriel Kay

Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in an masterful story of honor and power. It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father''s last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses. You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already...

A masterful epic of magic, politics, war, and the power of love and hate—from the renowned author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Children of Earth and Sky. Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered... But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embark upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name...Tigana. Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.

Taken to a realm of magic and war, five men and women from our world embark on an epic journey in the first novel in Guy Gavriel Kay’s classic, critically acclaimed fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry. It begins with a chance meeting that introduces the five to a man who will change their lives: a mage who brings them to the first of all worlds, Fionavar. In this land of gods and myth, each of them is forced to discover what they are and what they are willing to do, as Fionavar stands on the brink of a terrifying war against a dark, vengeful god...

The multiple award-winning fantasy author of The Fionavar Tapestry brings his extraordinary imagination to a tale of mythic figures in contemporary times... Ned Marriner is in France with his father, a celebrated photographer shooting the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral of Aix-en-Provence. While exploring the cathedral, Ned meets Kate, an American exchange student with a deep knowledge of the area’s history. But even Kate is at a loss when she and Ned surprise a scar-faced stranger, wearing a leather jacket and carrying a knife. “I think you ought to go now,” he tells them. “You have blundered into a corner of a very old story...” In this ancient place, where the borders between the living and the long-dead are thin, Ned and his family are about to be drawn into a haunted story, as mythic figures from conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, changing—and claiming—lives.

Guy Gavriel Kay, multiple award-winning author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Sailing to Sarantium, completes his magnificent tale of an alternate Byzantine world… In the golden city of Sarantium, a renowned mosaicist seeks to fill his artistic ambitions and his destiny high upon a dome intended to be the emperor’s enduring sanctuary and legacy. The beauty and solitude of Crispin''s work cannot protect him from the dangerous intrigues of court and city, swirling with rumors of war and conspiracy, while otherworldly fires mysteriously flicker and disappear in the streets at night. The emperor is plotting a conquest of Crispin’s homeland to regain an empire. And with his fate entwined with that of his royal benefactor, Crispin’s loyalties come with a very high price. And another voyager has come to the imperial city: Rustem of Kerakek, a physician from an eastern desert kingdom, determined to find his own fate amid the shifting, treacherous currents of passion and violence that define Sarantium.

Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature ‘quarter turn to the fantastic’ to tell a story of vengeance, power, and love. On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast a small ship sends two people ashore. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. If they succeed, the consequences will affect the destinies of empires, and lives both great and small. One of those arriving at that beach is a woman abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude. Having escaped, she is trying to chart her own course—and is bent upon revenge. Another is a seafaring merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith, a moment that never leaves him. In what follows, through a story both intimate and epic, unforgettable characters are immersed in the fierce and deadly struggles that define their time. All the Seas of the World is a page-turning drama that also offers moving reflections on memory, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives—in the past, and today.

A powerful, moving saga evoking the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse cultures of a thousand years ago from the acclaimed author of The Fionavar Tapestry. “A historical fantasy of the highest order, the work of a man who may well be the reigning master of the form.”—The Washington Post Book World Bern Thorkellson, punished for his father’s sins, denied his heritage and home, commits an act of vengeance and desperation that brings him face-to-face with a past he’s been trying to leave behind... In the Anglcyn lands of King Aeldred, the shrewd king, battling inner demons all the while, shores up his defenses with alliances and diplomacy—and with swords and arrows. Meanwhile his exceptional, unpredictable sons and daughters give shape to their own desires when battle comes and darkness falls in the spirit wood... And in the valleys and shrouded hills of the Cyngael, whose voices carry music even as they feud and raid amongst each other, violence and love become deeply interwoven when the dragon ships come and Alun ab Owyn, pursuing an enemy in the night, glimpses strange lights gleaming above forest pools... Making brilliant use of motifs from saga and song and chronicle, Guy Gavriel Kay conjures a work of subtle, intricate richness, bringing to life an unforgettable world balanced on the knife-edge of change.

International bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay''s latest work is set in a world evoking early Renaissance Italy and offers an extraordinary cast of characters whose lives come together through destiny, love, and ambition. In a chamber overlooking the nighttime waterways of a maritime city, a man looks back on his youth and the people who shaped his life. Danio Cerra''s intelligence won him entry to a renowned school even though he was only the son of a tailor. He took service at the court of a ruling count—and soon learned why that man was known as the Beast. Danio''s fate changed the moment he saw and recognized Adria Ripoli as she entered the count''s chambers one autumn night—intending to kill. Born to power, Adria had chosen, instead of a life of comfort, one of danger—and freedom. Which is how she encounters Danio in a perilous time and place. Vivid figures share the unfolding story. Among them: a healer determined to defy her expected lot; a charming, frivolous son of immense wealth; a powerful religious leader more decadent than devout; and, affecting all these lives and many more, two larger-than-life mercenary commanders, lifelong adversaries, whose rivalry puts a world in the balance. A Brightness Long Ago offers both compelling drama and deeply moving reflections on the nature of memory, the choices we make in life, and the role played by the turning of Fortune''s wheel.

Guy Gavriel Kay, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author of The Fionavar Tapestry, brings his unique storytelling imagination to an alternate Byzantine world… Sarantium is the golden city: holy to the faithful, exalted by the poets, jewel of the world and heart of an empire. Caius Crispus, known as Crispin, is a master mosaicist, creating beautiful art with colored stones and glass. Still grieving the loss of his family, he lives only for his craft—until an imperial summons draws him east to the fabled city. Bearing with him a Queen’s secret mission and seductive promise, and a talisman from an alchemist, Crispin crosses a land of pagan ritual and mortal danger, confronting legends and dark magic. Once in Sarantium, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, intrigues and violence, Crispin must find his own source of power in order to survive. He finds it, unexpectedly, high on the scaffolding of his own greatest creation.

The bestselling author of The Fionavar Tapestry weaves a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. Against this tumultuous backdrop the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands—where empires and faiths collide. From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman posing as a doctor’s wife but sent by Seressa as a spy. The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming. As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world....

“River of Stars is a major accomplishment, the work of a master novelist in full command of his subject.”—Michael Dirda, in The Washington Post “Game of Thrones in China.”—Salon.com Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate. That moment on a lonely road changed his life in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later—and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles toward the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north. Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor—and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has. In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

From the critically-acclaimed author of The Fionavar Tapestry comes an epic fantasy novel of love, both courtly and forbidden, and two kingdoms endlessly opposed... Blaise of Gorhaut is a warrior. He fought for his king and country, until the king died with an arrow in his eye at the battle of Iersen Bridge, and a dishonorable treaty ceded a good part of his country to foreign hands. He has broken relations with his father, adviser to the king of Gorhaut, and abandoned the use of his family name. Now, Blaise is a mercenary. He never expected to work for the lords of Arbonne, the warm, fertile lands south of Gorhaut, whose people praise the love of women—they even worship a goddess, instead of the god. They are a soft people, or so he thought. But for all their nonsense about love, their troubadours and songs, they will fight for their country, when invasion comes from the north.

Before Guy Gavriel Kay became known for his groundbreaking works of speculative fiction, establishing himself as one of the world''s most respected writers in that genre, he was an accomplished poet, his work appearing in major literary journals such as The Antigonish Review and Prism. Through the years, while writing his dramatic international bestsellers, Kay has continued to quietly explore the paths and boundaries of poetry as well. Now for the first time, Guy Gavriel Kay''s poetry has been gathered and selected for publication. For those familiar with his fiction, the poems in Beyond This Dark House will resonate for their linguistic and emotional nuances and their mythological allusions, echoing and illuminating themes of his fiction. But readers of contemporary poetry will also be captivated by the exquisite craft and power of these poems. Some are ironic and austere, slyly tracing the interplay of writer and world, present and past; others are sensual, even erotic, charting the mercurial but abiding nature of passion-in love, in language, in history.

Five men and women from our world face a battle with an evil beyond imagining in the deeply moving conclusion to Guy Gavriel Kay’s acclaimed Fionavar Tapestry. As the Unraveller’s armies assemble, those resisting him must call upon the most ancient of powers, knowing that if this realm of gods and magic is conquered by evil, the ripples of destruction will be felt across all worlds. But despite the sacrifices made and courage shown, all may be undone because of one child’s choice. For that one has been born of both Darkness and Light, and he alone must walk the darkest road as the fate of worlds hangs in the balance...

Award-wining author Guy Gavriel’s sixth novel, hauntingly evocative of medieval Spain, is both a brilliant adventure and a moving story of love, divided loyalties, and what happens to men and women when hardening beliefs begin to remake -- or destroy -- a world. The ruling Asharites have come from the desert sands, worshipping the stars, their warrior blood fierce and pure. But over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, that stern piety has eroded. The Asharies empire has splintered into decadent city-states lead by warring petty kinds. King Almalik of Cartada is on the ascendancy, adding city after city to his realm, even though Cartada is threatened by forces both within and without. Almalik is aided by his friend and advisor, the notorious Ammar ibn Khairan -- poet, diplomat, soldier -- until a summer afternoon of savage brutality changes their relationship forever. Meanwhile, in the north, the Jaddite’s most celebrated -- and feared -- military leader, Rodrigo Belmonte, is driven into exile in the wake of events following the death of the king he loved. Rodrigo leads his mercenary company south, to the dangerous lands of Al-Rassan. In the exquisite lakeside city of Ragosa, Rodrigo Belmonte and Ammar ibn Kharian meet and serve -- for a time -- the same master. Sharing the interwoven fate of these two men from different worlds -- and increasingly torn in her feelings -- is Jehane, the beautiful, accomplished court physician, whose own skills play an increasing role as Al-Rassan is swept to the brink of holy war, and beyond.

In the second novel of Kay’s critically acclaimed trilogy, Fionavar is locked in an unnaturally prolonged winter while an ancient evil, freed from captivity, threatens the destiny of the first world and all others, including our own.

For the first time in one collection, the two internationally bestselling novels of The Sarantine Mosaic, one of Guy Gavriel Kay’s most loved works. Sailing to Sarantium Sarantium is the golden city: holy to the faithful, exalted by the poets, jewel of the world, and heart of an empire. Artisan Caius Crispus receives a summons from the emperor and sets off on a journey toward the Imperial City. But before Crispin can reach Sarantium, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, he must pass through a land of pagan ritual and mysterious danger. Sailing to Sarantium, the first volume of the brilliant Sarantine Mosaic, weaves an utterly compelling story of the allure and intrigue of a magnificent city and the people drawn into its spell. Lord of Emperors Having finally achieved his journey to fabled Sarantium, Crispin the mosaicist wants nothing more than to confront the challenges of his art high on the scaffolding of destiny—but in Sarantium no man may easily withdraw from the turmoil of court and city, or forget that the presence of the half-world is always close by. To the Imperial City there comes another voyager, this time from the east. Rustem of Kerakek, a physician, must find his own balance of family and ambition, healing and death, as he, too, is drawn into the deadly webs of Sarantium. In this concluding volume of the Sarantine Mosaic, Lord of Emperors merges page-turning adventure with a deeply moving meditation on art and power, and the eternal human struggle to leave a legacy.

Three spellbinding novels by internationally bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay. A Song for Arbonne Arbonne and Gorhaut—two lands as different as the sun and the shadowed moon. In the south, the olive trees and vineyards of Arbonne flourish, and the troubadours fill the air with songs of love and desire. To the north, the history of Gorhaut has been forged with blood and fire, and now a corrupt king and his ruthless advisor seek to conquer the warm, fertile lands of Arbonne. But the land of courtly love is also a land of passion, willing to wage a complex and courageous fight to survive. Inspired by the glorious world of the troubadours, A Song for Arbonne is a love song to medieval Provence. The Lions of Al-Rassan Home to three very different cultures, Al-Rassan is a land of seductive beauty and violent history. Peace among the Jaddites, Asharites, and Kindath is a precarious, elusive thing, made so by the ever-present shadow that divides the inhabitants but draws extraordinary individuals together. Ammar ibn Khairan—poet, diplomat, soldier—Rodrigo Belmonte—accomplished military leader—and Jehane bet Ishak—brilliant physician—find their lives overtaken by a series of dramatic events that bring Al-Rassan to the brink of war. Hauntingly evocative of medieval Spain, The Lions of Al-Rassan is an exhilarating story of love, divided loyalties, and what happens to men and women when passionate beliefs conspire to remake—or destroy—a world. The Last Light of the Sun For generations, the Erlings of Vinmark have taken their dragon-prowed ships across the seas, raiding the lands of less violent people, leaving fire and death behind. But times change, even in the hard north, and in a tale woven with consummate artistry, people of very different cultures find the threads of their lives unexpectedly entwined. Making brilliant use of saga, song, and chronicle, The Last Light of the Sun brings to life an unforgettable world balanced on the knife-edge of change.

Five young people find themselves flung into the magic land of Fionavar, First of All Worlds, to play their part in the vast battle against the forces of evil led by the fallen god Rakoth Maugrim and his dark hordes. This is the first book in a fantasy trilogy in the "Lords of the Ring" tradition.

Et si notre monde n''était que le pâle reflet d''un autre monde, réel celui-là? N''en déplaise aux cinq héros incrédules qui plongeront malgré eux derrière la "tapisserie". Trilogie de "fantasy" canadienne qui n''a rien à envier aux oeuvres tant anglaises qu''américaines en cette formule.

Et si notre monde n''était que le pâle reflet d''un autre monde, réel celui-là? N''en déplaise aux cinq héros incrédules qui plongeront malgré eux derrière la "tapisserie". Trilogie de "fantasy" canadienne qui n''a rien à envier aux oeuvres tant anglaises qu''américaines en cette formule.

Et si notre monde n''était que le pâle reflet d''un autre monde, réel celui-là? N''en déplaise aux cinq héros incrédules qui plongeront malgré eux derrière la "tapisserie". Trilogie de "fantasy" canadienne qui n''a rien à envier aux oeuvres tant anglaises qu''américaines en cette formule.