The Ruby in Her Navel

by Barry Unsworth (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.25

  Thurstan, a young Norman and would-be Knight at the Court of King Roger in Palermo, has been in love since boyhood with Lady Alicia, now returned a widow from the Holy Land. At the same time, he is enthralled by the earthy sensuality of the dancer, Nesrin, whose troupe he brings to Court to dance for the King. In a compelling tale of love, passion, intrigue and treachery, Thurstan finds himself caught in a tangle of plots, counter-plots and deceptions that threaten to destroy him. Set in twelfth-century Sicily against the backdrop of the Crusades, Barry Unsworth's brilliant new novel tells the story of how the war between Islam and Christendom impinges on both Thurstan's mind and his heart. His journey towards freedom and love, driven along by the forces of history in the making, is both moving and unforgettable.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.76

  The Court of King Roger in Twelfth century Sicily simmers with the volatile passions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Latins and Greeks. Among them, a young Norman called Thurstan Beauchamp finds employment under Yusuf, a Muslim who holds the Christian king's purse strings. But while Thurstan wishes to be made a Knight, he has little taste for courtly intrigues and instead divides his time between the divine - in the shape of childhood sweetheart Lady Alicia - and the delightful: the sensuous and exotic dancer Nesrin. However, in his pursuit of love and knighthood, Thurstan has yet to appreciate that he may also be a pawn in a far more deadly game...