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The Dragon Queen [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe Reader 7]
eBook by Alice Borchardt
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eBook Category: Mainstream
eBook Description:  Arthur turned and strode toward us. He was magnificent, and I will never forget that, in that moment, I first loved him. And I believe--had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives--I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then ... In a sweeping epic of the imagination, Alice Borchardt enters the wondrous realm of Arthurian legend and makes it her own. The Dragon Queen is the first volume in a trilogy of novels that boldly re-imagines Camelot--and casts Guinevere as a shrewd, strong-willed, magical warrior queen. Born into a world of terrible strife, where war is constant and weapons are never far from the hands of men or women, Guinevere, daughter of a mighty pagan queen, is a threat to her people and a prize to the dreaded sorcerer Merlin. Sent into hiding, she grows up under the protection of a shapeshifting man-wolf and an ornery Druid. But even on the remote coast of Scotland, where dragons feed and watch over her, she is not safe from the all-seeing High Druid Merlin. He knows the young beauty's destiny, and he will stop at nothing to prevent what has been foretold. For if Guinevere becomes Queen and Arthur, King, they will bring a peace to the land that will leave the power-hungry Merlin a shriveled magician in a weary cloak. Yet Guinevere possesses power of her own--dazzling power to rival even that of Merlin. Summoned from her home by forces she cannot fathom, she travels from the Underworld to an Otherworld of the Past, at each step calling on ancient powers to aid her way. When young Guinevere proves her mettle to an embarrassed Merlin, even her faithful dragon protectors cannot prevent the evil that the sorcerer rains down. Seeking revenge, Merlin banishes Arthur to a world from which the only escape is death. Now Guinevere must face Merlin's wrath without him--and prove that she is worthy of being Arthur's Queen. From the glass-roofed Great Hall at Tintigal to the lush garden forts of Wales, Alice Borchardt details the travels of Guinevere in a rich fabric of prose. The Dragon Queen is a novel of great emotional depth, timeless romance, and soul-stirring adventure.
eBook Publisher: Random House, Inc., Published: 2002
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2002
Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe Reader 7 - What's this?]: SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT (841 KB], SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT (452 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT (508 KB], SECURE ADOBE READER 7 FORMAT (1.9 MB]
Words: 100000
Reading time: 285-400 min.
Secure Adobe Reader 7: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
MobiPocket Reader ISBN: 9780345449504
Microsoft Reader ISBN, Adobe Acrobat Reader ISBN, eReader (recommended) ISBN: 0345449509
 
The Silver Wolf
"A daring and vibrant new voice on the female literary frontier . . . The Silver Wolf is a stunning initiation into a dark and dazzling realm."--ANNE RICE "A fascinating tale--brutal, ribald, engrossing, poignantly beautiful."--JOHANNA LINDSAY
New York Times bestselling author Night of the Wolf
"Mystical . . . Fascinating . . . Readers feel, breathe, taste, and love with the characters . . . Let yourself be drawn into this world."--Romantic Times "Borchardt's wolves have a sensuous intensity that matches the best suspense fantasy being written today."--Kirkus Reviews The Wolf King
"A beguiling and dark romantic fantasy . . . A powerful tale . . . Sensuous, provocative storytelling."--BookPage "Exciting from the first page to the last."--Allscific.com
PROLOGUE How odd that I should write a book. And write it now when I have ceased to believe in them. When I was young, I loved books: the coiled paper rolls in copper casings, the bound parchment kind whose leaves turned one at a time. They revealed all the world to me. Or so I thought. This is what the Christian church has done to us: made us people of the book. Now I think that is perhaps not such a good thing. Before Patrick came to Ireland we were people of the wind, the storm, the spring flood filling the rivers. We marked the turning of the seasons and the sun's journey through the halls of heaven. We struggled with the famine in the spring and feasted when the autumn poured out its abundance at our feet. By day we lived in the sun when it shone and the gray rain and wispy mist when it didn't. We sang to one another of the paths taken through the heavens by sun, moon, and stars and watched them when they rose and set above the chamber tombs to carry with them the souls of the dead. And we sought truth, enlightenment, love, and beauty in each other's faces, hands, hearts, and bodies -- not in the shadowed, crackling pages made of paper and parchment. We were a people of music, and we sang and danced, the thunder and whisper of tides on sand and shingle, the roar of the wind speaking in a forest making love to moor and meadow or the shrill lament of a cold winter storm. When hungry, we ate -- if we had the food. A lot of times we didn't. When cold, we huddled about the fire and wove magnificent tales of love, conflict, good, evil, gods and heroes, who were sometimes more than gods in their steadfast courage and sacrifice. Oh yes, I admire books. I still do. They can preserve a truth for twice a thousand years and teach it to any who has the skill and cares to read it. They can also fix a lie in stone forever. But worse still, they -- the books -- can be about nothing at all. Nothing real. And men and women can pour out their lives, brooding over shadows that never existed except in some madman's mind. Men can wear away their lives searching for the kernel of truth they think can be found in the disordered ravings of a fool. For you see, the turning spindle twists thread, the shuttle flies between the warp and weft, and the jewels of mixed colors light cloth, the adze smoothes wood, the knife cuts it, and the scraper cleans hides. But a mass of words may mean nothing at all. So we must return to the music, the dance, the songs, to hunger, desire, and love, lest we forget who and why we are. We must sit around the fire and tell the tales, the stories of gods and men, so we might know how to behave properly. In work and war, in life and death, we are instructed by the deeds of others. In wisdom and courage, skill and truth, by music and the dance. I am myself a creature of the dance, the imitation of the movements embraced by the dialogue between earth and sky. The dance of power, the steps I trod on the edge of a mountain so long ago. Copyright © 2001 by Alice Borchardt
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