[sufue]

A free historical novel from Joffe Books...

Of Relics and Romance, first in the Hotspur series by Evan Ostryzniuk
Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01G5RONL8
Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01G5RONL8

Spoiler:

The Christian Crusades against the Saracen ‘heathens’ are on hold after its chief instrument of missionary and military zeal, the Order of the Knights Templar, have been discredited and disbanded.

But the threat remains.

Amid an atmosphere of suspicion, representatives of the warring kings of England and France meet to try to agree a truce and ‘take up the Cross’ together against a common heathen enemy.

Lancastrian noble John of Gaunt is the English side’s negotiator and aspiring knight Hotspur is there trying to prove his worth as guardian of one of the duke’s prized sacred relics – the Finger of St Bernard of Clairvaux, a French monk and fervent promoter of the Second Crusade. It’s an age where the owners of such grisly remains are thereby believed to be endowed with superhuman powers.

Like many a red-blooded young man, Geoffrey aspires to join the courtly circle with its entourage of beautiful women – and is soon seduced by the physical charms of Inge, the handmaiden of a powerful French lady.

But of course there’s more to siren Inge than meets the eye – and Geoffrey quickly finds out she’s on a mission which could wreck his ambitions.

Ostryzniuk’s novel is an elegant restatement that history is a continuum, part of the present, that ‘the more things change, the more they are the same’. It also uncovers real human hearts beating once the dust of the past has been blown away.