Fair Helen
Author(s): Andrew Greig
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2014. The Scottish Borderlands, 1590s. Harry Langton is called back to the country of his childhood to aide an old friend, Adam Fleming, who believes his life is in danger. He's fallen for Helen of Annandale and, in turn, fallen foul of her rival, Robert Bell: a man as violent as he is influential. In a land where minor lairds vie for power and blood feuds are settled by the sword, Fleming faces a battle to win Helen's hand. Entrusted as guard to the lovers' secret trysts, Langton is thrust into the middle of a dangerous triangle; and discovers Helen is not so chaste as she is fair. But Langton has his own secrets to keep - and other friends to serve. Someone has noticed his connections, and recruited him in their bid to control the hierarchy of the Border families; someone who would use lovers as pawns in a game of war. Saltire Award-winning author Andrew Greig reimagines the Border Ballad Fair Helen of Kirkconnel Lea as a dark romance and stirring adventure. Often called the Scottish Romeo & Juliet, here it is re-presented as the source of an equally famed, more complex drama.
General Information
- :
- : Quercus Publishing Plc
- : Quercus Publishing Plc
- : 01 May 2014
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 July 2014
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Andrew Greig
- : Paperback
- : 368
More About The Product
Shortlisted for Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2014.
'Exciting and moving, intelligent and imaginative ... Demands to be read once at the gallop, and then a second time slowly, savouring the details and relishing its intelligence' Allan Massie, Scotsman. 'One of the best historical novels of recent years, Greig dusts off the past and presents it with tremendous skill' Kaite Welsh, Literary Review. 'A triumph of suspense ... what sets Fair Helen above the usual run of historical novels, aside from Greig's extraordinarily deft use of language, is its moral depth, its acute sense of the intricacies of the Border feuds' John Burnside, Guardian.
Andrew Greig is the author of six acclaimed books of poetry, two Himalayan mountaineering expedition books, and five novels including the Saltire-Award winning In Another Light, That Summer, When They Lay Bare and Romanno Bridge. His non-fiction books include Preferred Lies and At the Loch of the Green Corrie. He lives in Orkney and Edinburgh, with his wife, the novelist Lesley Glaister.
