Ysabel cover art

Ysabel

A Novel

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About this listen

The internationally best-selling fantasy novels of Guy Gavriel Kay have won the author numerous awards and immense critical acclaim. Ysabel is a contemporary fantasy that centers on the Saint-Sauveur Cathedral of Aix-en-Provence, where a 15-year-old boy accompanies his father on a photo shoot. Befriending a whip-smart American girl and confronting a knife-wielding maniac, the boy finds that the ancient site shimmers with mysteries of fantastical design.

©2007 Guy Gavriel Kay (P)2008 Penguin Audio Classics Epic Epic Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Magic
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I really enjoyed this story and it lives up fully to the description. This take on fantasy successfully crafts a true feel of magic within the Provence countryside by including local history and culture to pull the reader in. As someone who lived in Aix en Provence for a year, I can verify the accuracy of place and genuinely say that I did feel returned to the streets of Aix whilst reading.

My only bugbear is with the narrator who does not pronounce ‘Aix’ correctly. (She annunciates it as ‘Ayyx’, emphasising the A sound instead of the correct form used by all locals: ‘Ex’).

Engaging and different

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I got bored 2 chapters in. This book is trying to do too many things. Just about finished it, but it did not get better.

A real drag

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Another brilliant novel by Guy Gavriel, thought through story line, carefully crafted characters and link to his other piece. Excellent narration.

thoroughly enjoyable

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absolutely loved the story set in Provance. Didn't know what to expect and was fully surprised with the magical/historical twist. Great characters and excellent story

one of the best books I listened to recently

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Narrated by Kate Reading.
Ned, age 15, is in France, Aix en Provence, for the summer while his father, a famous photographer, is taking pictures for a new book. He wanders sround the cathedral one day and meets Kate, an American in Aix on a school exchange. They discover a strange and threatening man emerging from the vault, and from then on Ned is led deeper and deeper into a mystery which began over two and a half thousand years ago. At its core is the intense rivalry between two men, a Roman and a Celt, for the love of a woman, Ysabel. Their story is doomed to repeat through the centuries, one killing the other to claim the woman (always a woman plucked from the current time by magic) but this time it's different. Ned and his whole family become embroiled. The plot is gripping, the dilemmas suitably perplexing, and the ending very satisfying. Poor Ned goes through the mill when he starts to dscover that he has some kind of second sight. There's a family rift between his mother and her sister which comes into play. Though the prose is lush and elegant there are moments when this slowed down a little too much. It could have been shorter and more succinct. There was a lot of running arround to no effect, which broke the rising tension. I still enjoyed it, but could have enjoyed it more had it been more compact.

A bit slow in places

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