To Lie with Lions: The Sixth Book of The House of Niccolo [Paperback]

Dorothy Dunnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 27, 1999

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolò series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire.
    
  The year is 1471. Within the circus of statecraft, where the lions of Burgundy, Cyprus, England, and Venice stalk and snarl, Nicholas wields a valued whip. Having wrested his little son Jordan from his estranged wife, Gelis, he embarks on the greatest business scheme of his life-- beginning with a journey to Iceland. But while Nicholas confronts merchant knights, polar bears, and the frozen volcanic wastelands of the North, a greater challenge awaits: the vengeful Gelis, whose secrets threaten to topple all Nicholas has achieved. Here is Dorothy Dunnett at her best. Robustly paced, prodigiously detailed, To Lie with Lions renders the quicksands of Renaissance politics as well as the turnings of the human soul, from love to hate and back.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nicholas de Fleury, cosmopolitan merchant banker of late-15th century Venice, burgher of Bruges, master manipulator who craves absolute personal power, stands at the dawn of the modern age, shedding light on our own. In this sixth engrossing installment of her House of Niccolo saga (following The Unicorn Hunt), Scottish novelist Dunnett focuses on her scheming, autocratic, charming hero's startlingly modern open marriage to quick-witted, self-sufficient Gelis van Borselen. It's a war of wills, egos and attrition that erupts in 1471 as de Fleury (aka Nicholas vander Poele) snatches his infant son, Jordan, from Gelis's arms and kidnaps the boy, a pawn in a bitter power struggle that will take the lives of friends and rivals. Nicholas, who often resembles a mercenary or soldier of fortune more than he does a banker, serves multiple masters, working secretly for French King Louis XI while openly advising Charles, Duke of Burgundy and Scottish King James III. With her usual dramatic flair, Dunnett mixes historical and fictive characters in a tale that sweeps from Venice to Antwerp, Edinburgh, Iceland, France and Cyprus, where Nicholas undertakes a diplomatic mission to James de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia. High adventure, high finance, war, piracy and royal intrigue enliven a historical romance that seems unerringly realistic in its quicksilver evocation of a world where happiness is fleeting and usually unexpected.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Readers who discover Dorothy Dunnett's razor-sharp prose for the first time in To Lie with Lions will be delighted to find that they have more than 2,600 pages to savor in the five preceding volumes of the House of Niccolo saga, which began with Niccolo Rising (1986). This complex and entertaining story of pre-Renaissance Europe tells of Nicholas van der Poole, who transforms himself from dye-yard apprentice into savvy businessman, gentleman, and, finally, head of the Banco di Niccolo, a powerful institution competing with the bank of the de Medicis and the Vatachino. Dunnett's great gift is to combine fascinating period settings and genuine historical events with characters of wit, deep emotion, and strong desires. Throughout the saga, Nicholas has been warring with his natural father, Simon de Fleury, who refuses to acknowledge him. He is also in conflict with Gelis van Borselen, who betrayed and then married Nicholas (Scales of Gold, 1991), blaming him for her sister Katelina's death. To these battles, Nicholas brings as weapons his formidable talents: intelligence, physical skill, and, most recently discovered, the power of divining for metals--or people. The preceding five books have concerned themselves with some critical fifteenth-century commodity: sugar, alum, silk, glass, slaves, and with this sixth volume, the children of the aristocracy. Both Nicholas' legitimate and illegitimate sons are used as pawns by his powerful enemies, and his struggle to protect them takes him on journeys through Scotland and the Loire and on a truly epic voyage to Iceland, among the geysers, volcanoes, and polar bears. New and old fans of Dunnett's fiction will be enthralled. Roberta Johnson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375704825
• ISBN-13: 978-0375704826
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #606,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars nicholas lives, December 29, 2000

By 

jrubi02 "jrubi02" (Chapel Hill) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Lie with Lions: The Sixth Book of The House of Niccolo (Paperback)

This is an amazing series. At times I think the history is the best part of it - you must stop to check up on Trebizond, or Cyprus, try to untangle what Brugges is, figure out the connection between James III of Scotland and the later Jameses - the 15th century springs to life in Dunnett's hands. And besides the history, Dunnett creates incredible characters, with Nicholas at the center, complex genius that he is. (In what guise does Nicholas live today?) Kathi Sersanders, the lively spirit who best understands him, represents the best of us, admiring and loving, and his son Jodi seems as familiar as all of our own children. Dr Tobias, the doubting and brilliant foil of Nicholas, is a magnificent creation, (and another way to represent the reader at his/her best). Okay, so it's a (long long long) soap opera, but you just can't go wrong: at the end you have Nicholas and his loyal band to dream of, and nearly a whole century of history that you never knew existed. Sign me up for the Dorothy Dunnett tour of the world!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complex and totally involving, September 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: To Lie with Lions: The Sixth Book of The House of Niccolo (Paperback)

As with all Dorothy Dunnett's books, you need to start at the beginning of the series. If you don't, then "To Lie With Lions" won't make much sense. The personalities with their rich background and convoluted associations won't have any context and the threads that weave backwards, forwards, will just be a tangled mess. But....read in sequence, the unbelieveable complexity, the mystery, the totally involving history of the characters springs to life. I guess it doesn't happen to everyone who reads Ms Dunnett's books - but for me she is numero uno and a lifelong love.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not her best..., January 20, 1998

By 

Robert I. Katz (Port Jefferson, New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: To Lie with Lions (House of Niccolo/Dorothy Dunnett, Vol 6) (Hardcover)

Dorothy Dunnett has been described as the greatest living historical novelist. Maybe she used to be. The author has always had a penchant for melodrama, a penchant which marred her earlier series, the Lymond Chronicles...but this book has gone seriously around the bend. Ms. Dunnett has a forceful prose style, a sure ear for dialogue, a keen descriptive eye and a masterly handle on her characterizations. Her plots are another matter. In To Lie with Lions, the hero, Nicholas de Fleury, survives (purely by luck) at least three separate attempts on his life. His wife and toddler son survive similar attacks, and, again purely by fortuity, Gelis barely escapes seduction by the King of Scotland in a medieval hot-tub (but hey, what's a little serendipity among friends). If all this weren't enough, it seems that Gelis, after having slept with Nicholas' father, after having claimed that Nicholas' son was not his, after having become an agent for his enemies and having conspired for his total financial ruin, was not doing all of this (as had earlier been claimed) for retribution in the belief that Nicholas had seduced and betrayed her sister. No...now it is revealed that Gelis actually felt inferior to her sister and did not think that she could keep Nicholas' love and interest unless she showed him that she was smarter than he was (a real genius, this girl). And then, after betraying the poor lovestruck lunatic in every way possible, she decides that Nicholas is the one who's gone too far (!) because he bankrupt the treasury of Scotland (and incidentally won their little game). She then goes off in a huff to cherish her moral superiority (I bet that'll show him). I've got to admit, I'll probably read the next one, but after this, I don't much care.