Ysabel: Guy Gavriel Kay

Ned Marriner is spending six weeks with his father in France, where the celebrated photographer is shooting Saint-Sauveur Cathedral in Aix-en-Provence. Both father and son fear for Ned’s mother – a physician with Doctors Without Borders, currently assigned to the civil war-torn country of Sudan. This is not the first time she’s placed herself in harm’s way to help alleviate suffering – and Ned has inherited her courage. He’ll need it.

While exploring the cathedral, Ned meets Kate Wenger, 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, deep inside the cathedral. “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 tale, as mythic figures from conflicts of long ago erupt into the present, changing – and claiming – lives.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s usual rich prose and seamless weaving of ancient mythos with modern setting characterize this novel. Readers will find themselves transported into the story, reluctant to put it down until the last page is turned. Fans of the Fionavar Tapestry will be pleasantly surprised by Ysabel, with its return to familiar themes and an unexpected update that alone makes it worth reading.

The author has a gift for retelling historical legends that makes them feel fresh and new, giving those familiar with the stories a different perspective and introducing newcomers to the stories in a way guaranteed to make them want more. He makes a reader see the landscape, smell the scents on the air and experience the places as if they were there. His characters are ordinary people with extraordinary gifts who step up and perform heroic acts to make things right.

I enjoyed Ysabel immensely and recommend it to fans of Guy Gavriel Kay as a must-read. Newcomers to Guy Gavriel Kay will love this book as a stand-alone novel, but I predict it will make them want to check out the Fionavar Tapestry as well.
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Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Roc Hardcover (February 6, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0451461290
ISBN-13: 978-0451461292
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