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A review by nigellicus
The Firedrake by Cecelia Holland
5.0
Laeghaire of the Long Road, from Tralee, no less, an Irish mercenary knight, a devil of a fighter and, well, a devil in general, finds his way, indirectly, into the employ of William of Normandy. The two make an impression on each other in the course of a Summer campaign, but to say much more than that might give things away, though I'm sure even the most casual student of history will work out where it's all headed.
This is Holland's first novel, and it shows a bit as in her first pages of terse, short sentences she's grappling with her craft and learning the difference between short sentences that are monotonous and repetitive, and short sentences interspersed with sentences of more varied length leading to an effect that would be praised as 'hard-boiled' in a crime novel, but which suits descriptions of deadly but prosaic men going about the business of warfare and statecraft. Laegharie is an intense, morose, driven, haunted man who is beating off bandits one minute and buying peasant girls the next; pillaging a landscape one minute, doting on his son by the bought peasant girl the next; but on the whole, Laeghaire is not destined for happiness, whether by mischance or his own love of violence, and if a happy life eludes him, then violence he gets a-plenty, waiting for him on a hill outside Hastings.
Anyway, it's superb.
This is Holland's first novel, and it shows a bit as in her first pages of terse, short sentences she's grappling with her craft and learning the difference between short sentences that are monotonous and repetitive, and short sentences interspersed with sentences of more varied length leading to an effect that would be praised as 'hard-boiled' in a crime novel, but which suits descriptions of deadly but prosaic men going about the business of warfare and statecraft. Laegharie is an intense, morose, driven, haunted man who is beating off bandits one minute and buying peasant girls the next; pillaging a landscape one minute, doting on his son by the bought peasant girl the next; but on the whole, Laeghaire is not destined for happiness, whether by mischance or his own love of violence, and if a happy life eludes him, then violence he gets a-plenty, waiting for him on a hill outside Hastings.
Anyway, it's superb.