Title:
Named of the Dragon
Author: Susanna Kearsley
ISBN: 9781402258640
Pubdate: October 6, 2015
Imprint: Sourcebooks Landmark
Summary
A haunting tale of intrigue from
New York Times bestselling author Susanna Kearsley.
SOMEWHERE IN THE HEART OF LEGEND
LIES THE KEY TO HER TERRIFYING DREAMS
The
charm of spending the Christmas holidays in South Wales, with its
crumbling castles and ancient myths, seems the perfect distraction
from the nightmares that have plagued literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw
since the loss of her baby five years ago.
Instead, she meets an emotionally fragile young widow who's convinced that Lyn's recurring dreams have drawn her to Castle Farm
for an important purpose--and she’s running out of time.
With
the help of a reclusive, brooding playwright, Lyn begins to untangle
the mystery and is pulled into a world of Celtic legends, dangerous
prophecies, and
a child destined for greatness.
Author Bio
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author and RITA award winner
Susanna Kearsley is known for her meticulous research and exotic
settings from Russia to Italy to Cornwall, which not only entertain her
readers but give her a great reason to travel. Her lush writing has been
compared to Mary Stewart, Daphne Du Maurier,
and Diana Gabaldon. She won the coveted Romance Writers of America RITA
Award for The Firebird, and hit the bestseller lists in the U.S. with
The Winter Sea and The Rose Garden, both RITA finalists and winners of
RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards. Other honors include
finaling for the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year Award, National
Readers’ Choice Awards, and the prestigious Catherine Cookson Fiction
Prize. Her popular and critically-acclaimed books are available in
translation in more than 20 countries and as audio books.
She lives in Canada, near the shores of Lake Ontario.
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Excerpt
While
the halls beside it crumbled from the strain of staying upright,
Pembroke Castle’s
keep had stood through eight long centuries of tumult, and looked
capable of weathering another eight with ease. It had been poked at,
over time. Bits of the parapet surrounding the domed roof had tumbled
down, or been removed, and when we walked round to
the north side I could see the black and jagged hole that marked the
first-floor entrance, stripped of all its finer facing stones. But such
small scars went virtually unnoticed on a building so imposing.
“I’m not sure you should be doing that,” said James, as I scampered up the flight of steps toward the gaping
doorway. “Those steps might not be safe. And anyway, you can’t get in that way, you have to go through here.”
The
steps didn’t feel dangerous, but I didn’t imagine that open defiance
was something James craved in an
agent, and I ought to be trying to show him how well I could listen.
Reluctantly, I turned back and went through the proper entrance, a much
smaller door set at ground level. It felt like walking through a
tunnel—the walls of the keep must have been a good
twenty feet thick—but at length it discharged us, like puny
adventurers, into the cavernous space.
“You see?” James, who had seen it before, pointed up at a ragged-edged hole, streaming light. “It’s a doorway
to nothing, the floors have all gone.”
I had tipped my head backward, struck dumb by the sight.
Originally,
there would have been three or more levels here, comfortable rooms,
wooden floors, warming fires
that burned in the royal apartments, but all of that was lost now to
the callous hand of time. What remained, though, was in some ways more
impressive.
Stripped
to its bare outer walls, it was like a cathedral, a great hollow
soaring cathedral of stone, with
a perfect domed ceiling and small arching windows that slanted pale
light through the reverent gloom. From every ledge and opening long
streaks of soft and mossy green dripped downward, passing shades of rust
and gentle blues that stained the walls in places
where the plaster had not fallen from the gray, unyielding stones.
I took a breath, inhaling dust, and fumbled for my guidebook. “Seventy-five feet,” I said, in awe. “This
shaft is seventy-five feet tall.”
James looked at me. “You say that as though it’s a challenge.”
“It
is.” I’d always liked climbing things. Turning, I spotted the newel
stair, and happily
squeezed up one tight winding flight to the first narrow landing.
Resting my hands on the cold metal piping that served as a guardrail, I
leaned through the open arched doorway to look down at James. “Coming
up?”
“No,
I’ve done it once, thank you.” He sauntered forward, moving through a
shifting web of light and shadow,
to see me better. By the time I reached the third and final landing, he
was standing in the center of the floor. “Do warn me if you’re going to
fall,” he said, “so I can step aside.”
“You wouldn’t catch me?”
“From that height? You must be mad.”
I
took a firm grip on the guardrail and leaned out as far as I dared, to
admire the view. The dome, from
this height, was a marvel of masonry, hundreds of stones set with
perfect precision to form an impossible half sphere that floated above
me. Absorbed, I leaned further, and felt my hand slip in the instant
before something clamped round my shoulder.
“Don’t worry,” said Gareth, behind me. “I’ll catch you.”
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