Ysabel
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| Ysabel | |
| Author | Guy Gavriel Kay |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Series | Yes |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Roc Hardcover |
| Publication date | February 2007 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 432 |
| ISBN | ISBN 9780451461292 |
Ysabel is the tenth novel by Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay. It was first published in January 2007 by Viking Canada.
It is Kay's first urban fantasy and his first book set outside his fantasied Europe milieu since the publication of his first three novels in the 1980s (The Fionavar Tapestry).
Kay lived in the countryside near Aix-en-Provence, the setting of Ysabel, while he wrote it.
Ysabel is set in the same realm as The Fionavar Tapestry, but is set approximately twenty years after the end of the series. Two characters from The Fionavar Tapestry, Dave Martyniuk and Kimberly Ford, are integral to the story.
Ned Marriner is an average (or so he thinks) fifteen-year old boy. He is in France with his dad, Edward Marriner, who is a famous photographer that is photographing Saint-Sauveur Cathedral in Aix-en-Provence. Both Ned and his father worry about Ned’s mother, Meghan Marriner, who is a physician that has volunteered to visit the war-torn country of Sudan with Doctors Without Borders; she has placed herself in harm’s way many times, and has plenty of courage, which Ned has inherited, and will need. Ned decides to explore the cathedral, when he is suddenly scared (involuntarily) by an American exchange student named Kate Wenger. She has a very deep knowledge of the cathedral and many other places in France, but nothing could have prepared either of them for what happened next. While walking through the cathedral, a strange man in a grey leather jacket carrying a knife sees them. He warns them, though it seemed more like a threat at the time. “I think you ought to leave. You have blundered into a corner of a very old story,” he tells them, and also cautions them that he has killed children before. Before they know it, Kate and Ned (especially Ned) are completely involved in something that no one had ever thought possible; like an entirely different world, and ancient battles taking place in present time.
Ysabel has been nominated for the White Pine Award.
