Devil's Bargain - Softcover

Judith Tarr is a World Fantasy Award nominee best known for her historical novels, such as The White Mare’s Daughter, Lord of the Two Lands, Throne of Isis, King and Goddess, and Pillar of Fire. A graduate of Yale and Cambridge Universities, she holds degrees in ancient and medieval history, and breeds Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona.

Tarr's usual meticulous historical research distinguishes this historical fantasy concerning late-twelfth-century sorcery and holy warfare. The place is the Holy Land, and the occasion is the Third Crusade, led by Richard the Lionheart, king of England and count of Anjou. As the bastard child of the late King Henry II and the enchantress Gwenllian, the healer Lady Sioned is Richard's half-sister as well as an heiress to magic arts. Her gift of Sight allows her to walk right into the mind and memories of Richard's mother, Eleanor, once the black-eyed beauty of Aquitaine and a great and terrible sorceress whose soul was sold in a devil's bargain to ensure her son's success as charismatic leader of forces that include French and Germans as well as English. Sioned has to try to save Richard's soul as well as his quest for Jerusalem in a contest against the sultan Saladin that goes beyond mere bloodlust as earthly forces, mirrored by the supernatural, battle for dominance. Whitney Scott
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