The Child Of The Holy Grail (Guenevere Novels)

The Child of the Holy Grail (Guenevere Novels)

From Publishers WeeklyThe third and final installment in Miles's feminist-inflected Guenevere trilogy set in Camelot boasts characters whose practice to deceive creates a tangled web indeed. Queen Guenevere is poised to be the good-hearted, long-suffering heroine, but she is more like a star-crossed black widow spider. Her beauty entraps both King Arthur and her knight, Sir Lancelot; once bitten, they are doomed to betray and be betrayed by Guenevere. Long ago, King Arthur fathered a son, Mordred, with his witch sister, Morgan Le Fay. After he and Guenevere reunite, an angry Morgan sends an adult Mordred to his father's court to gain admittance to the Knights of the Round Table and steal the crown from his aging father. As he is a living symbol of the affair, Guenevere is understandably cold toward Arthur's son, and finds comfort in cuckolding her husband with Lancelot. But even her most trusted knight is not without sin. Years ago, while escorting the sacred Hallows of the Goddess, or Holy Grail, Lancelot spent a night at the creepy Castle Corbenic. His hosts, the evil King Pelles, the king's beautiful, abused daughter Elaine, and the odd, elderly Dame Brisein, seemed all too eager for his company. When a new knight, 12-year-old Galahad, arrives to rival Mordred for a seat at the Round Table, Lancelot has a lot of explaining to do. Predictable melodrama and an overlarge cast of characters mar the tale, but fans of the series will yearn to know Guenevere and Camelot's fate. (July)Forecast: As the last volume in a popular trilogy, this book will be eagerly awaited, advertised by a teaser chapter in the paperback edition of The Knight of the Sacred Lake and by a colorful jacket matching those of the previous two volumes.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.Guenevere ...Last in a line of proud queens elected to rule the fertile lands of the West, true owner of the legendary Round Table, guardian of the Great Goddess herself . . . a woman whose story has never been told - until nowBrokenhearted at her parting from Lancelot and anguished over the loss of the sacred Hallows of the Goddess, Queen Guenevere reconciles with Arthur, although the fragile bond between them is threatened by a new presence at Camelot. Prince Mordred, Arthur's son by Morgan Le Fay, has come to stay and to be proclaimed heir to Guenevere and Arthur's kingdoms. Arthur has even designated for his son the Siege Perilous, the one unoccupied seat at the Round Table - the seat reserved for the Son of the Most Peerless Knight in All the World.But at the knighting, when Mordred takes his seat, the great Round Table, owned by the Queens of the Summer Country since time immemorial, cracks down the center. A terrible darkness falls over Camelot and in the midst of the chaos appears a new knight, Sir Galahad. Barely fourteen, he may hold the key to the mystery of the stolen Hallows, which the Christians believe to be the Holy Grail. The scene sets into motion the final brilliant cycle of the Arthurian legend-the Quest for the Grail and the fall of Camelot-which brings Guenevere to the brink of the most dreaded tragedy of all . . . and may ultimately complete her destiny as the greatest and most powerful Queen of the Isles.From Library JournalAfter the somewhat lackluster second volume in her Guenevere trilogy, Knight of the Sacred Lake, Miles returns to Camelot with a vengeance. Both Arthur and Guenevere are older and sadder, though no wiser. Much to the dismay of his queen, Arthur is falling further under the influence of the Christians, but the kingdom doesn't truly begin to disintegrate until Mordred, Arthur's son by the embittered Morgan Le Fay, is accepted at court and acknowledged as Arthur's heir to the throne. Into this tense atmosphere comes young Galahad, the son of Lancelot conceived through the evil machinations of Morgan Le Fay. The presence of Galahad and the destruction of the Round Table spur the older kn