Tigana is the first Guy Gavriel Kay book I have read. And it SO makes me wish that I hadn’t left his The Sarantine Mosaic sitting unread on our bookshelf for years now.

Him being both Canadian and a fantasy author would naturally recommend him to my bookshelf, but I was very pleased to discover that his writing arches also towards the historical in that he often writes while overseas and uses the history and culture of a particular place or time period as a model for the story. Who would have thought… historical fantasy!

Kay is just a master of suspense. He both sets up this story and then brings the climax to its end in equal parts of one hundred pages. In the interim, you are treated to first person story-telling, alternating between the major characters, quite often showing their different perspectives on the same event.

But his right hook is how he can work up to a small resolution of current events, a turning point or “oh no someone is going to die” moment and – then just before it actually happens – make the switch from one character to another. It felt like a book full of television season finales.

Regarding genre, I would recommend this book for anyone, not just lovers of fantasy. It could easily have been the story of a splintered nation in our own world. The novels’ fantastical elements are few and far between: a trinity of gods and the stories to go with them reminiscent of Greek mythology, names of food, beverages, flowers.

And after the initial set-up, which I won’t even breath a mention of because I was nicely surprised as to who was who in this book, I thought I was in for an action adventure with battles and blood from beginning to end. But what you really get are people, struggling to be free and not forgotten.

Characters were flawed, each unique and not entirely whole in the way that makes storybook characters come alive. There was never a page of description that I was tempted to skip. Full of coincidences, the irony of life and just enough but not too many happy endings. This book felt real – where the bad guys have motives and feelings too and the good guys don’t always act most chivalrous.

I wish I could give it six stars on Goodreads. Very deserving. Here i go to pull Sailing to Sarantium off my shelf…

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