Imprint
- W&N
- Gollancz
- Gateway
Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fantasy, Fantasy romance, Myth & legend told as fiction, Historical romance, Historical fiction
Includes Reading Group Notes.
'Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken, but chose my man and my fate. The man was famous, the fate obscure; not a bad balance.'
Lavinia is the daughter of the King of Latium, a victorious warrior who loves peace; she is her father's closest companion. Now of an age to wed, Lavinia's mother favours her own kinsman, King Turnus of Rutulia, handsome, heroic, everything a young girl should want. Instead, Lavinia dreams of mighty Aeneas, a man she has heard of only from a ghost of a poet, who comes to her in the gods' holy place and tells her of her future and Aeneas' past...
If she refuses to wed Turnus, Lavinia knows she will start a war - but her fate was set the moment the poet appeared to her in a dream and told her of the adventurer who fled fallen Troy, holding his son's hand and carrying his father on his back...
Praise for Lavinia: A compulsive, heart-breaking historical romance
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'The focus on the women's side of the house...serves to give them rightful prominence within the fabric of a society where men are second in command only to fate...Le Guin [makes] mythology tangible, exciting and a surprising joy to read.' - Scotland on Sunday.
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'Subtly moving, playful...a novel that brought me to tears more than once. Lavinia is a delightful heroine.' - Guardian.
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'Beautiful and moving...Highly recommended.' - Library Journal.
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'Elegant and eloquent.' - Entertainment Weekly.
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'Compulsively readable...a winning combination of history and mythology featuring an unlikely heroine imaginatively plucked from literary obscurity.' - Booklist.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest writers of our time. Her books have attracted millions of devoted readers and won many awards, including the National Book Award, the Hugo and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honor. Among her novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the six books of Earthsea have attained undisputed classic status; and her recent series, the Annals of the Western Shore, has won her the PEN Center USA Children's literature award and the Nebula Award for best novel. In 2014 Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lived in Portland, Oregon, until she passed away in January 2018.
Read more at http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/le_guin_ursula_k
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