The Kings in Winter

I ordered this from the library off the back of Hammer For Princes, and as luck would have it, it turns out to be set in Ireland in 1014, the lead-up to the Battle Of Clontarf, which, as it happens, happened, as it happened, a thousand years ago this coming weekend. For various ways and reasons, I haven't read much historical fiction set in Ireland. Looking over my Goodreads list, I see Year Of The French and that's it. I'd love to read more like this.

Our hero is Muirtagh, bowman and harper, clan chief of the O'Cullinane's, who have stayed in their refuge in the Wicklow hills for these last twenty years, since they were massacred and chased out of Meath by the mac Mahons. After pursuing and slaying a gang of Danish horse thieves, they show more are intercepted on their way home and summoned to Tara at the behest of the High King, Brian Boru. In the wake of the subsequent events in the High King's hall, the old feud is rekindled and Muirtagh's desperate efforts to save his clan end with him renouncing his chieftainship and fleeing as an outlaw with blood on his hands. The story culminates in the Battle of Clontarf, with Muirtagh on the side destined to lose.

I can't get over how good this is. Not being a big historical fiction head, with a few notable exceptions, I can't say whether these books are actually as underappreciated and abandoned to obscurity as they appear to be, but if so, it's truly undeserved. Holland's prose is spare, polished and unadorned. The story and the characters are superbly crafted, and the whole things is lean, smooth, tight, muscular and amazingly readable. Going by my own tastes, this book is in a magical, if unlikely, zone where Dorothy Dunnett and George RR martin overlap and I would unhesitatingly recommend it to fans of either. show less

Wonderful story with heroes who really are heroes but also credible. Muirtagh is Irish but like more Irish than is often realized, had his reasons for not liking Brian Boru. The story's climax is the battle of Clontarf. The only equal retelling I know is the one in Silverlock. This novel, like several of Holland's early stories (notably Great Maria) involves 2 brothers, one smarter, the other more conventionally heroic. Of the Holland books I have read (I have not read her more recent ones) I rate this second only to Until the Sun Falls (which I rate among the best historical novels I know).

I have to admit that I enjoyed the first half more than the second, but the language and the evocation of medieval Ireland are so good that this definitely gets four stars.