Children of Earth and Sky - by Guy Gavriel Kay (Paperback)

About the Book

Set in a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe, the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands where empires and faiths collide.

Book Synopsis

The bestselling author of The Fionavar Tapestry weaves a world inspired by the conflicts and dramas of Renaissance Europe. Against this tumultuous backdrop the lives of men and women unfold on the borderlands--where empires and faiths collide.

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request--and possibly to do more--and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman posing as a doctor's wife but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he's been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif--to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates--and those of many others--will hang in the balance when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world....

Review Quotes

Praise for Children of Earth and Sky
*#1 Locus Bestseller for August 2016*

"The lush historical tapestry serves...compelling, sympathetic characters."--Chicago Tribune

"A new release by fantasy master Guy Gavriel Kay is always an event. His approach, which is to explore our shared humanity through a prism of fantasy and history, is unparalleled--both in the genre and outside it."--The Huffington Post

"Worthwhile and rewarding."--San Francisco Book Review

"Kay is in masterful control of his material, and the prose is elegant. This is writing of the highest order."--Historical Novel Society

More Praise for the Novels of Guy Gavriel Kay

"[Read] anything by Guy Gavriel Kay...His strengths are strong characters and fantastic set pieces."--The New Yorker

"History and fantasy rarely come together as gracefully or readably as they do in the novels of Guy Gavriel Kay."--The Washington Post Book World

"Kay shows why he's the heir to Tolkien's tradition."--Booklist

"Kay is a genius. I've read him all my life and am always inspired by his work."--#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson

"A storyteller on the grandest scale."--Time Magazine, Canada

About the Author

Guy Gavriel Kay is the international bestselling author of numerous fantasy novels including The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, Tigana, The Last Light of the Sun, Under Heaven, River of Stars, and Children of Earth and Sky. He has been awarded the International Goliardos Prize for his work in the literature of the fantastic, and won the World Fantasy Award for Ysabel in 2008. In 2014 he was named to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor. His works have been translated into more than twenty-five languages.