First Line Friday || King Arthur Reimagined

Posted October 8, 2021 by Sammie in blog tour, Book Beginnings, First Line Friday, historical / 5 Comments

First Line Friday || King Arthur Reimagined

It’s time to play “guess that book” and also watch our TBRs weep.

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and is all about the first line of a current/upcoming read.

This is a very special First Line Friday Spotlight of a book that was entered in the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award for 2021 but didn’t make it through the first round. Which, of course, doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a little love and attention of its own!

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Late in May of the year of our Lord 563, in a vast hall lent to the men of Christ in Hibernia by her ard-ri, her high-king, a prince, an abbot, Colum Cille, or Columba, as he was known in the tongue of his Church, stood trial on suspicion of murder.
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The Chronicles of Iona: Exile

“Exile”, the first novel in the historical fiction series “The Chronicles of Iona”, is the story of the two men who laid the foundations of the Scottish nation, an Irish monk, Saint Columba, and a Scottish warlord, Aedan mac Gabran—a real-life sixth-century Merlin and King Arthur.

It is 563 A.D. The world has been plunged into chaos by the collapse of the Roman Empire and barbarian invasions: civilization holds on by a thread. Columba, a powerful abbot and prince of Ireland, is exiled for a violent act to the pagan colony of Dalriada on the west coast of Scotland. Awaiting him there is Aedan mac Gabran, the down-and-out second son of the colony’s previous king, slain by the bloodthirsty Picts.

Together, this unlikely pair travels the breadth of a lawless, divided realm, each in search of his own kind of unity. Their path is fraught with blood feuds, lost love, sacrifice, miracles, dark gods, and monsters. Beset on all sides, their only hope is to become allies—and to forge a daring alliance with the pagan Picts.

How Columba overcame exile and a crisis of faith to found the famous monastery of Iona (one of the greatest centers of learning in Dark Age Europe) and, from it, the Celtic Church in the British Isles; and how Aedan avenged his father’s death and became, against all odds, the progenitor of Scottish kings and the greatest warlord of his age, begins here.

For both, what begins as a personal imperative becomes a series of events that lead to the foundation of Iona and the kingdom of Scotland—events that literally change the world.

Historically authentic yet told with a bold fictional sweep, “The Chronicles of Iona: Exile” plunges the reader into the world of sixth-century Scotland and Ireland, the veritable Dark Ages—a world on the brink of either collapse or creation, poised between myth and history.



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  • Historical fiction retelling of King Arthur and Merlin.
  • Set in historical Scotland and Ireland.
  • Plenty of drama and adventure.
  • Characters from various walks of life coming together.
  • Blood feuds, dark gods, and monsters.
  • Murder and mayhem during the Dark Ages.
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Stay Fierce, Sammie

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