★★★½
The Avaryan Rising Trilogy: Book I
I’ve wanted to read more by Judith Tarr ever since finishing A Wind in Cairo and, thanks to a very bountiful visit to Hay-on-Wye, I now have quite a few of her books lined up. The opening salvo was this high-fantasy trilogy, combining court intrigue with an elemental struggle between light and dark. It begins with a loss: the disappearance of the old king’s daughter, chosen as his heir but consecrated to the Sun God. She leaves on the traditional Journey of a trainee priest; and never returns. For twenty-one years, the old king stands waiting every morning on the battlements of his mountain-locked castle, hoping that his beloved heir will return. One morning, he has an answer, in the form of a young man, a stranger, who bears an almost incredible message. He is Mirain, the son of the lost princess, fathered by the Sun God himself, and he has come home. His arrival brings joy to the heart of his aged grandfather, but alarm to the court – for this stranger has, at one stroke, destabilised all the hopes of the king’s illegitimate son…
The Idle Woman 