Product Description

It is the time of the Crusades. The Islamic world is divided and the Franks
have captured the Holy Land. As the mighty Saladin struggles to unite the
warring clans of Arabia against the invaders, Khalidah, a young Bedouin
woman of no obvious importance finds herself a pawn in a deadly plot
involving her own feuding tribe and the powerful Templar Knights. Faced
with certain death, she runs away with a man she barely knows, towards
adventure and the echoes of a past that somehow connect her to the Jinn -
the mysterious Afghan warriors who may hold the key to the coming battle
for the Holy Land.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309678 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Robert Finn, author of Adept and Ex Machina
Somehow intimate and grand at the same time. Romantic, thrilling,
epic and touching. How does Sarah Bryant do it?

Synopsis
It is the time of the Crusades. The Islamic world is divided and the Franks have captured the Holy Land. As the mighty Saladin struggles to unite the warring clans of Arabia against the invaders, Khalidah, a young Bedouin woman of no obvious importance finds herself a pawn in a deadly plot involving her own feuding tribe and the powerful Templar Knights. Faced with certain death, she runs away with a man she barely knows, towards adventure and the echoes of a past that somehow connect her to the Jinn - the mysterious Afghan warriors who may hold the key to the coming battle for the Holy Land.

From the Back Cover
An impossible choice...
For decades, the rival clans of the most powerful tribe of medieval Arabia
have been locked in a bitter feud. In a final attempt to heal the rift,
Sheikh `Abd al-Aziz promises his daughter Khalidah to his nephew Numair in
marriage. But Khalidah knows her future husband to be a violent man of
ruthless ambition, and suspects that his motives in marrying her are not
entirely altruistic. On the eve of the wedding, Numair's minstrel Sulayman
confirms Khalidah's suspicions: Numair plans to use her in a deal he has
struck with the brutal Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Templar
Knights - a deal that will destroy her tribe and endanger her own life. But
Sulayman also offers her a way out: flee with him to seek help from her
mother's people, a mysterious Afghan tribe who call themselves the Jinn.
Faced with the choice between leaving with a man she knows nothing about
and staying to become an unwilling accomplice in her tribe's destruction,
Khalidah decides to trust Sulayman. It is a decision whose consequences
will spread wider than she could ever have imagined. For as Khalidah and
Sulayman ride east in search of the Jinn, the powerful Sultan Salah ad-Din
gathers the Muslims of the west to challenge the Frankish invaders, and
Khalidah reaches her destination only to find that her quest and the
Sultan's are inextricably intertwined. Once again she is faced with an
impossible choice, and this time her decision will determine the very
future of Islam.

Customer Reviews

An Action Packed Novel

Sarah Bryant was born in Brunswick, Maine, USA in 1973. After a childhood spent in Maine and Massachusetts, she attended Brown University in Rhode Island, USA. In 1996 she moved to Scotland to do an MLitt in creative writing at University of St. Andrews, and ended up marrying a Scot and settling in the UK. She now lives with her husband and daughter in the Scottish Borders, where along with writing she doubles as a teacher of the Celtic harp, and occasionally triples as a printmaker. The print on the left is a detail from the etching "Garden, Drinan", 1999.

This is an action packed book which virtually does the full spectrum of human emotions, love, fear, agression , regret and any others that you can think of. It takes place at the time of the crusades. The Islamic Land of the east is divided and the Christians have captured the Holy land. Saladin is struggling to unite the tribes of Arabia into one fighting force against the invaders.

A young Bedouin woman, Khalidah a person of no importance finds herself entwined in a deadly plot involving her own tribe and the powerful unit of Templar Knights who are a major force in the Holy Land. Faced with certain death from both sides, she runs away with a man she hardly knows and follows a path that leads to adventure and a past that somehow connects her to the Jinn, mysterious Afghan warriors who may hold the key to the future of the Holy Land.