Book 2 - The Lady of the Light
See snippets of reviews from Amazon.com and other goodies below:
Lady of the Light
Customer Reviews — [1] Rating: 5 Date: 2007-10-05 Summary: Well Worth the Wait ... This is a big book by any standards, almost 500 pages and is the result of years of research and study by the author into the culture, and history of Rome and the Germanic tribes. The book believe or not is a follow up to The Light Bearer, a book that Donna Gillespie wrote 12 years ago. The book continues the life of Auriane, a warrior maiden of the Chattian tribe, designated to be their new prophetess but as fate would have it she was captured by the Roman army and taken in chains to the city of Rome. Once there ...more
[2] Rating: 5 Date: 2007-09-05 Summary: In some ways it's better than the first one... ... This book is beautifully composed and artfully put together. I found not a wasted sentence. There is polished beauty to the scenes that shows a new mastery on the part of this author. The forward movement of the story is brisk and relentless and calamity lurks at the end of every chapter - I never felt a slowing of tension throughout the whole book. This family struggles to stay together as they are ringed by wolves. This story is put together like a puzzle box - every piece matters. I had to read it twice to appreciate ...more
[3] Rating: 4 Date: 2007-08-23 Summary: Good, but not as great as the first one ... This novel is the sequel to the magnificent work "The Light Bearer", which was an epic saga centering around Auriane, who is the daughter of a chieftain of a Germanic tribe at a time that ancient Rome is pushing further and further into their territory. It was fast paced, intriguing, well-written - just fantastic all around. I would even put it on a par with "The Mists of Avalon" and recommend it to anyone, whether or not they like historical fiction. It's been about 7 years since I read the book and I looked forward ...more
[4] Rating: 5 Date: 2007-07-30 Summary: everyone has already said it all. ... A really good summer read. I just finished it, can still smell the leather horse saddles and feel the cool fog on my face. ...more
[5] Rating: 4 Date: 2007-05-02 Summary: Almost super ... I read this book right after reading Light Bearer and found it almost as good. In the middle I was losing interest and then Ms. Gillespie brought in the nine maidens with their string skirts and I was hooked again. Scholars say that the skirts were worn high on the waist and did not fall low enough to cover the private parts (not sure of the reason why) but this is a minor inaccuracy. I await book three when I am sure the family will be temporarily reunited after many adventures, of course. I am curious to see how ...more
Editorial Reviews — ... Book Description | Auriane, warrior maiden of the Chattian tribe, was sworn to remove the cursed Romans from the lands of the Rhine. Then fate intervened: she was captured, brought to Rome in chains, and trained to fight in the arenas as a gladiator-only to fall in love with a Roman aristocrat, Marcus Arrius Julianus, and become his wife. Marcus and Auriane have lived in tranquility for years but, without his knowledge, Auriane is a traitor to Rome. Plundering her husband's coffers for nearly a decade, Auriane...more
Publisher's Weekly
Gillespie (The Light Bearer) continues the adventures of her larger-than-life Germanic heroine, Auriane. In the first installment, Auriane, the daughter of a great "hero-chief" of her native Chattian tribe, was captured by the Romans and trained as a gladiator before being rescued by Marcus Arrius Julianus.
Now, seven years later, Auriane and Marcus live in the frontier province of Germania Superior on a sprawling estate with their daughters, Avenahar and Arria Juliana. The idyllic interlude is interrupted when the Chattians, who are being threatened by another Germanic tribe, the Cheruscans, look to Auriane for their salvation.
Torn between her people and her family, Auriane rejects pleas to return to personally lead the Chattian resistance, and instead steals from her husband to secretly fund the Chattians' defense efforts. When her activities are discovered, Auriane is tried for treason and sentenced to death. Compounding her troubles, Avenahar runs away and joins the Chattian resistance, an unknown assassin stalks Marcus and a political rival kidnaps Arria Juliana.
Kirkus Reviews
The sequel to Gillespie's elaborate Roman epic featuring proud warrior Auriane (The Light Bearer, 1994) finds the now middle-aged woman on the verge of retirement while comfortably ensconced in her lover Marcus Julianus's estate with two daughters. It is a.d. 105, and Emperor Trajan rules over an uneasy conglomerate of nations in the Roman Empire. At the imperial border of Germany, where the ancient rivers Mosella and Rhenus meet, the Chattian chieftain's daughter Auriane has lived in romantic accord for seven years with Marcus Julianus, the revered, aristocratic Roman official and father of her nine-year-old daughter, Arria. Secretly, however, Auriane has been involved in a dangerous smuggling operation for her ragtag guerrilla tribe, the Chattians, and is torn between her love for Marcus and her desire to help her people in their ongoing insurrection against Rome. And her fearless, hot-headed 13-year-old daughter, Avenahar - whose father, a Roman slave, Auriane was involved with during a time she'd rather forget - is determined to become a warrior like her mother. When her father's fighting companion Witgern, leader of the Chattian Wolf Coats, seeks out Auriane to help them, Auriane refuses out of love for Marcus and her children, yet she is forced to flee anyway (with Avenahar quick at her side) once the Romans find out she is the fugitive smuggler.
Gillespie is an engaging, credible narrator of these far-flung events, and delights especially in the details of Avenahar's womanhood ceremony, enacted deep in the ancestral Holy Wood in the presence of numerous elderwomen and sorceresses. When Avenahar bolts at the news of who her father really is, Auriane sets off to find her and with Marcus's help enlists the might of the Roman army, although our feminist warrior is fed up with this senseless violence and vows to spend her last years as a seer. Gillespie provides yet another invincible female heroine in Auriane's daughter Avenahar - look for her apotheosis in the next installment.
....Secretly supplying her people with money to buy arms, Auriane risks not only her own life but that of her husband and daughters should her treachery be discovered. As fate would have it, Auriane's secret is uncovered and exploited by the pettiest of tyrants. With the safety of her people tipped on one side of the scale and her family's lives held in the balance on the other, Auriane searches her soul and bravely makes her choices.
Gillespie has a real sense of time and place. All the cruelty, passion and treachery that we expect from Rome and her people come alive in LADY OF THE LIGHT, the long- awaited sequel to THE LIGHT BEARER. This is an expertly paced page-turner from one of history's most exciting chapters.
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