This is a book that swallowed my weekend. I opened in on Saturday morning and put it down, finished, on Sunday night. I've missed Mr. Kay's work and this book happily joins its predecessors on my shelf.
I have read all of Guy Kay's novels and can, therefore, compare. This is very different fare from Lions, Tigana and Sarantium. Ysabel lacks that sweeping scope, the feeling of a story that will stay with you forever and characters that burn their way into you heart. Ysabel sweeps 2,500 years of history, but it is not an epic. It looks at that history from the outside. On the other hand, though I worship the three works above, I do not hesitate to admit they are not told as concisely as they might have been. Some parts drag and that takes away from the momentum of the phenomenal stories lines. Ysabel is all story; all motion. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. It is exciting, a little scary, completely engrossing. The true mark of Kay's talent and precision here is that he did not just shift from a character-driven story to a plot-driven one. Not at all. The characters are vivid. Their image is instantly before you. They are instantly complex. You do not like or dislike anyone absolutely, but take them as they are in all the shades of gray. A shameless honesty, there. There is no barrier to knowing them and getting into their heads. I cared for them all, even the more peripheral personages.
Beneath it all and all around is the history. I loved the history. The description of Provence as dripping with it is wonderful. Every inch of land is saturated with stories. All the stories are exciting and intriguing. All are worth telling. All are Real. You walk away from the book with a clear understanding that the 400-some pages of the book barely scratched the surface; that fifty more books could come out of that land and still not tell it all.
That is, perhaps, the general feeling the book left in me: motion, the promise of change, the guarantee of memory and an appreciation for the beauty of human nature, despite all we've done to each other over the centuries. I don't see myself re-reading Ysabel every year like I do Lions and Tigana, but it WAS wonderful. (Every other year, then!) My gratitude to Mr. Kay.
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