The Last Light of the Sun

Name: The Last Light of the Sun
Rating: 4.02 (11023 reviews)

by Guy Gavriel Kay

First published 2004

Amazon

4.0(11,023)

Bern Thorkellson, the restless son of an exiled Erling farmer, joins a raiding expedition in search of wealth and reputation. Across the sea, King Aeldred of the Anglcyn is attempting to unite and defend his realm, while the Cyngael of the western coast endure attacks that turn farms, families and captives into the prizes of war. A raid that does not unfold as planned binds young fighters and noble households from all three cultures into a chain of vengeance and obligation.

The novel moves between warriors, rulers, servants and women whose lives are altered by the seasonal violence of the northern seas. Its supernatural elements belong to a landscape where the dead and the faerie world remain close to human settlements, but the central conflicts concern honour, slavery, law and the difficult creation of political order. Inspired by Viking expansion, Alfredian England and the Celtic west, it portrays an age in which raiding can bring glory to one family and permanent loss to another.