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Product Details
Touchstone, May 2009
Trade Paperback, 448 pages
ISBN-10: 1416589899
ISBN-13: 9781416589891
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Chapter 1
Description
Book One in the Twilight of Avalon Trilogy
She is a healer, a storyteller, a warrior, and a queen without a throne. In the shadow of King Arthur's Britain, one woman knows the truth that could save a kingdom from the hands of a tyrant...
Ancient grudges, old wounds, and the quest for power rule in the newly widowed Queen Isolde's court. Hardly a generation after the downfall of Camelot, Isolde grieves for her slain husband, King Constantine, a man she secretly knows to have been murdered by the scheming Lord Marche -- the man who has just assumed his title as High King. Though her skills as a healer are renowned throughout the kingdom, in the wake of Con's death, accusations of witchcraft and sorcery threaten her freedom and her ability to bring Marche to justice. Burdened by their suspicion and her own grief, Isolde must conquer the court's distrust and superstition to protect her throne and the future of Britain.
One of her few allies is Trystan, a prisoner with a lonely and troubled past. Neither Saxon nor Briton, he is unmoved by the political scheming, rumors, and accusations swirling around the fair queen. Together they escape, and as their companionship turns from friendship to love, they must find a way to prove what they know to be true -- that Marche's deceptions threaten not only their lives but the sovereignty of the British kingdom.
In Twilight of Avalon, Anna Elliott returns to the roots of the legend of Trystan and Isolde to shape a very different story -- one based in the earliest written versions of the Arthurian tales -- a captivating epic brimming with historic authenticity, sweeping romance, and the powerful magic of legend.
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1. Novelist Anna Elliott: Twilight of Avalon02:2333736145001
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How did you come to write this book?
Twilight of Avalon was inspired by a very vivid dream in which I told my mother that I was going to write a book about Modred's daughter. When I woke up, the idea just wouldn't let me go. Then in the very early stages of outlining, when I was just beginning to get an idea of the shape of the story, I was looking at Celtic names for my protagonist. The name Isolde caught my eye and I thought, hmm . . . and began to realize how many aspects of my story already fitted with the Trystan and Isolde legend. So blending the two together just felt completely natural from then on. I had first encountered both the Trystan and Isolde legends and the Arthurian legends in college, so I did already have somewhat of a background in the period. I was an English major with a concentration on medieval literature, and completely fell in love with everything about the Arthurian world. It was an absolute joy to get to live in that same world during the months I was working on my own version of the legend.
"From out of the swirling mists of legend and history, a worthy addition to the Trystan and Isolde cycles."
-- Margaret George, author of Helen of Troy
"Anna Elliott takes the aerie-fairy out of the fabled Arthurian tale of Trystan and Isolde, and gives us a very plausible version. Our heroine has the spunk of a woman of our era, and this Isolde is one we can all admire and aspire to."
-- Anne Easter Smith, author of The King's Grace and Daughter of York
"Elliott's reworking of a timeworn medieval tale reinvigorates the celebrated romance between Trystan and Isolde...Fans of the many Arthurian cycles will relish this appropriately fantastical offshoot of the Arthurian legend."
-- Booklist
"Unique and delightful...a most promising first novel filled with passion, courage, and timeless magic."
-- Library Journal
Anniston Star, August 16, 2009
...opera). However, if Tristan and Isolde's story is indeed of the same breed as Arthur's, then Anna Elliott's first novel, Twilight of Avalon, marks the birth of a totally new animal. Although the two legends have been virtually synonymous for ...
Blogcritics.org, May 28, 2009
...From the mysterious mists of history and legend comes a delightful, unique Twilight of Avalon: A Novel of Trystan and Isolde by Anna Elliott. This novel takes the traditional Arthurian legends surrounding the famous lovers and expands on ...
Anna Elliott's Books
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Dark Moon of AvalonTrystan and Isolde return, gaining unlikely allies in their fight to save Britain from the tyrant Marche, in book 2 of the Twilight of Avalon trilogy.Read More
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