A Hero Born

by Jin Yong Book 1 in the Legends of the Condor Heroes series.

First published 2018

Amazon

4.4(1,189)

In 1205, Song patriots Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang are attacked after a chance meeting with the Daoist Qiu Chuji. Their families are scattered, and Guo’s widow reaches the Mongolian steppe, where her son Guo Jing grows up among Temüjin’s followers. Slow to learn but fiercely loyal, he is trained by the Seven Heroes of the South and becomes a companion of the future Genghis Khan’s children and commanders.

When Guo Jing returns to the divided Chinese lands to keep an eighteen-year-old martial appointment, he encounters the resourceful Huang Rong and the privileged young Jin prince Wanyan Kang. The novel connects personal inheritance to the rivalry between the Southern Song and Jurchen Jin states and to the creation of the Mongol Empire, testing whether birth, upbringing or chosen loyalty defines a person’s homeland.