Gods' Concubine by Sara Douglass

#17 of 200

Original Language: English
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Country: Australia
Publication Date: November 2003
ISBN: 0-7322-7161-4
Page Count: 596

From ancient Greece they came, remnants of the glorious Trojans. Led by Brutus, Kingman, holder of the bands of gold that wield the very magic of the Gods, these travelers are bowed but not broken, and they have come to Albion to begin anew. A vision of beauty called them to create a new Troy, and when they landed on the shores of the land that became Britain, they found an old magic that was fading. And so they began to construct a new Labyrinth, a place of magic that will bring unimaginable power to those who can control it.
The temptress who brought Brutus to this land seeks to use him for her own purposes, but in that she fails, for it is the bride of Brutus who dooms the completion of the labyrinth … and sends all the players in this drama—handsome Brutus, his beautiful wife, Cornelia, and the sensuous and deadly Genvissa—into a hell of death and rebirth, until the Labyrinth is completed and the ancient magic is set free. A thousand years pass. Cathedrals rise in place of mud and wattle huts, hymns to saints replace odes to Celtic and Greek gods. But the magic from the dawn of time waits, and the players are not yet done with their destinies. They have new faces and new bodies, but old souls—-and not all who have come back remember their parts in this drama. There are kings and princes, deadly court intrigues, and ancient powers awoken. And a warrior across the sea who only waits for his opportunity to finish what was started centuries before …

God’s Concubine is the second entrancing novel in Sara Douglass’ quartet:The Troy Game. Closely following the events of Hades Daughter, God’s Concubine is set two thousand years after Brutus and Genvissa’s thwarted attempt to close the Labyrinth and gain the ultimate immortality. It is the first time since their original lives that the malicious Asterion has allowed those bound by the Game to return.

Hades Daughter by Sara Douglass

#16 of 200

Original Language: English
Publisher: Voyager Books
Country: Australia
Publication Date: December 2002
ISBN: 0732271649
Page Count: 596

Ancient Greece is a place where mortals are the playthings of the gods—but at the core of each mortal city-state is a Labyrinth, where the mortals can shape the heavens to their own design. When Theseus comes away from the Labyrinth with the prize of freedom and his beloved Ariadne, the Mistress of the Labyrinth, his future seems assured. But she bears him only a daughter—and when he casts her aside for this, the world seems to change. From that day forward, the Labyrinths decay, and power fades from the city-states. A hundred years pass, Troy falls, the Trojans scatter. Then Brutus, the warrior-king of Troy, receives a vision of distant shores where he can rebuild the ancient kingdom. He will move heaven and earth to reach his destiny. But in the mists is a woman of power, a descendent of Ariadne, who has her own reasons for luring Brutus to this lush land. Her heart is filled with a generations-old hatred, and her vengeance on him will not be thwarted. If Brutus makes the journey successfully, it will be the next step in the Game of the Labyrinth, and the beginning of a complicated contest of wills that will last for centuries…

Hade’s Daughter is the first of Sara Douglass’ (Sara Warneke) Troy Game Quartet. Narrated by the adolescent Dorian Princess Cornelia, Hades Daughter is a fantastic historical adventure in an alternate universe. Set in the Ancient World, a hundred years after the fall of the legendary city of Troy, Hade’s Daughter is about the greatest Game ever played. At the heart of all the great cities of history lies the Labyrinth; the Labyrinth protects cities from harm until the great Greek warrior Theseus shuns Ariadne and brings doom down upon all civilisations.

A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly

#15 of 200

Original Language: English
Publisher: Harcourt’s Childrens Books
Country: United States
Publication Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 978-0-15-216705-9
Page Count: 400

Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace’s drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly’s astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original. Includes a reader’s guide and an interview with the author.

Jennifer Donnelly’s most celebrated young adult novel, winner of the 2003 Carnegie Medal, A Gathering Light (also published as A Northern Light), is the inspiring tale of Mattie Gokey, a young woman desperate to further her education. The novel details important moments in Mattie’s life, the death of her Mother, her beau Royal Loomis and the general going’s on in her home town in the Adirondack Mountains. In addition, there are chapters detailing her work at the Glenmore Hotel, where a young woman has drowned and her partner is missing.