Book Review: Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Provence is the sun-kissed paradise of the south of France. Cookbook and travelogue writers have made a killing from writing about it, or even better, getting their own television show set in its environs. Its charms haven't been lost on some of the great painters either, as both Van Gogh and Cézanne created some their best-known masterpieces in the region.

Maybe it shouldn't be surprising to discover that it also saw some of the ancient world's bloodiest wars and clashes. Dating back to pre-empire Rome's earliest settlements outside of Italy, the conflicts between so-called barbaric Celts and civilized Romans left the earth soaked in blood and memories. In the years since those earliest times, other battles and other peoples have come and gone, raised monuments to their faiths, and finally established permanent residency here among the olive groves of the Romans. The only invaders they need worry about now are the tourists who come to view the ruins and relics of people whose lives have all but vanished into the mists of time.

Ned Marriner is not a regular tourist on a two-week tour. He's accompanying his father, a world-renowned photographer, on his latest coffee table book shoot. At 15 he's more grateful for the fact that he's been pulled out of school a month or so early in order to make the trip then anything else, but the cool remoteness he strives for is sorely tested almost immediately upon arrival.

His father's first day of shooting is at the Cathedral in Aix en Provence and Ned wanders off into the interior of the chapel while his father and his crew set up. While resting in a nave he is surprised by Kate Wenger, a girl his own age studying in France on a student exchange program. Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of a metal grill being clanged into place, and while investigating the sound, they enter into a story older than the Cathedral itself.

The innocuous, everyday occurrence of two awkwardly cool teenagers of the opposite sex meeting for the first time is the unlikely herald for subsequent events, but in the world of Guy Gavriel Kay's newest novel Ysabel, nothing can be considered normal. Ned and Kate's world of iPod Shuffles, mobile phones, and "Google is my midnight lover" is on a collision course with a love triangle that predates Christ.

The bald man with the knife that the two surprise leaving the underground passage of the church not only turns out not to be your average run-of-the-mill tomb raider, their meeting triggers within Ned an awareness that begins to dissolve the barriers between him and another plane of existence.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the forthcoming book What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

Visit Richard Marcus's author page — Richard Marcus's Blog