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The Secret Swan: A Novel
Title | The Secret Swan: A Novel |
Writer | |
Date | 2025-01-26 07:55:39 |
Type | |
Link | Listen Read |
Desciption
Shana Abé has captured the imagination of readers everywhere with her superbly sensual tales of forbidden love. Now she weaves the exquisite story of a man and woman torn apart by fate — who realize years later that love's second bloom is the one that matters most.At fifteen Lady Amiranth St. Clare became the bride of Tristan Geraint. She thought all of her dreams had come true — until she learned on her wedding day that Tristan had married her only for her bloodline. A week later Tristan deserted her for the glories of battle. Heartbroken, Amiranth felt she'd been abandoned, not knowing that Tristan had become a prisoner of war — nor that he would one day return to the life he didn't know he wanted until it was taken away. Eight long years pass before Tristan finally comes home. A beautiful woman greets him in the garden, claiming to be Amiranth's cousin. Yet somehow she seems hauntingly familiar, with an ethereal radiance that stirs him deep within his heart. Is she really his wife, grown into a lady of breathtaking beauty — or another woman who has awakened within him a passion he has never known? To discover the truth, Tristan must reveal the secrets of what happened those years he was away — and find the love that was closer than he ever imagined.... Read more
Review
Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review Setting: England 1349 Sensuality: 7 With one look, 9-year-old Lady Amiranth St. Clare fell hopelessly in love with Tristan Geraint, while Tristan never gave the girl a second glance, that is until her family agreed to an arranged marriage. At 15, Amiranth thinks her dreams are coming true until she overhears Tristan tell a friend that he is marrying her only for her impeccable bloodlines. His words cut her to the bone, and when he leaves her a week after the wedding to fight for his king in France, she feels betrayed and abandoned. Neither of them know that Tristan will be wounded, imprisoned, and absent from England for eight long years--years that teach Amiranth bitter lessons about men, life, and trust. The memory of his young wife has kept Tristan sane during torture and isolation. He returns to find a beautiful, hauntingly familiar woman who claims to be Amiranth's cousin, Lily, and she tells him that his young wife has died in the plague that has decimated England. Both Tristan and Amiranth (posing as Lily to escape her former life) have deep secrets they refuse to share, and both are drawn inexorably to each other. Now Tristan must not only accompany Amiranth to safety, but he must find a way to retake his position as Earl of Haverlocke, a title now claimed by his younger brother. He needs Amiranth's help to do so, and the two strike a bargain, working together in a castle filled with intrigue and treachery. They can't trust the nobles that surround them, but can they trust each other when eight years apart have taught them to rely on no one but themselves?The Secret Swan is a tale of two people wedded as youthful strangers, separated, and brought together again as adults who have been tested by time and heartache. This deeply emotional and intense story not only has superb characterization, but also features a terrific plot, a complex villain, and a wonderful setting. Author Shana Abé just keeps getting better and better with each new novel, so if you love fine historical romance, don't miss The Secret Swan. --Lois Faye Dyer Review "Shana Abé has created an unforgettable pair of star-crossed lovers caught in an age-old feud, while beautifully evoking the misty isle and the historical backdrop. She truly makes us believe we are part of this wondrous tale."— Romantic TimesFrom the Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap 3; has captured the imagination of readers everywhere with her superbly sensual tales of forbidden love. Now she weaves the exquisite story of a man and woman torn apart by fate who realize years later that love's second bloom is the one that matters most.At fifteen Lady Amiranth St. Clare became the bride of Tristan Geraint. She thought all of her dreams had come true until she learned on her wedding day that Tristan had married her only for her bloodline. A week later Tristan deserted her for the glories of battle. Heartbroken, Amiranth felt she'd been abandoned, not knowing that Tristan had become a prisoner of war nor that he would one day return to the life he didn't know he wanted until it was taken away. Eight long years pass before Tristan finally comes home. A beautiful woman greets him in the garden, claiming to be Amiranth's cousin. Yet somehow she seems hauntingly familiar, with an ethereal radiance that stirs him deep wi From the Back Cover Shana Abe has captured the imagination of readers everywhere with her superbly sensual tales of forbidden love. Now she weaves the exquisite story of a man and woman torn apart by fate -- who realize years later that love's second bloom is the one that matters most. At fifteen Lady Amiranth St. Clare became the bride of Tristan Geraint. She thought all of her dreams had come true -- until she learned on her wedding day that Tristan had married her only for her bloodline. A week later Tristan deserted her for the glories of battle. Heartbroken, Amiranth felt she'd been abandoned, not knowing that Tristan had become a prisoner of war -- nor that he would one day return to the life he didn't know he wanted until it was taken away. Eight long years pass before Tristan finally comes home. A beautiful woman greets him in the garden, claiming to be Amiranth's cousin. Yet somehow she seems hauntingly familiar, with an ethereal radiance that stirs him deep within his heart. Is she really his wife, grown into a lady of breathtaking beauty -- or another woman who has awakened within him a passion he has never known? To discover the truth, Tristan must reveal the secrets of what happened those years he was away -- and find the love that was closer than he ever imagined.... About the Author Shana Abé is the award-winning author of nine novels, including The Smoke Thief. She lives in the Denver area with four surly pet house rabbits, all rescued, and a big goofy dog. Please, please support your local animal shelter, and spay or neuter your pets. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Iving Castle 1341 It was going to be the most glorious day of her life.Today, Lady Amiranth St. Clare was to become a woman. She was fifteen years old, and a bride.His bride. Tristan Geraint, Earl of Haverlocke.She had loved him for years already. It was deep and heady and thrilling, and completely without reason, she knew. Amiranth had not told anyone of it, not even her cousin Lily, her most trusted friend. It was as if to share this feeling with anyone else -- anyone -- would tarnish it, turn it from shining silver to tin.She did not dare risk that. It was too wonderful a suffering, too dear and delightful and agonizing to give up.Amiranth had seen him her very first time at court, when she was just a child. Only nine years old, and the moment she picked him out from the line of squires lingering by a wall in the king's antechamber she had felt it -- her breathing stopped, her heart stopped, her entire existence ... stopped.He was dressed as the rest of the young men around him were, in fine tunics and colorful hose, each wearing the heraldry of the lord they served. He blended in well with them. Were it not for just one stray beam of sunlight sliding along the floor, she might not have noticed him at all.But the sunlight was there, slanting down from a window high above, and at just the moment when she glanced his way he took a half-step into the light, jostled by a friend, the two of them laughing softly together.She felt as if she had stepped, unsuspecting, into a vat of honeyed nectar, thick and sweet, filling her, suspending her even as she died within it. A blissful death -- or an excruciating life -- to gaze upon him, to bear witness to this beauty disguised as an ordinary squire. Amiranth had never before seen such dark splendor, such grace in a boy. By heavens, she had never even noticed a boy before now.It was in this incredible moment that she felt a recognition sound through her, resonating from the depths of her truest, truest heart: Here was the person destined to complement her soul.She had not known his name then, of course, or anything else about him, but that he was a squire and so had to be at least four years older than she. All Amiranth had seen was a slender youth with sunlight covering his shoulders, gleaming across him. He was taller than most of the rest, with black hair that fell into dishevelment, and lips that curled up at the edges when he laughed, as if he might be holding back more than mirth.His eyes were brown, like her own -- but no -- darker, closer to jet. Mysterious eyes, holding secrets and spells in their depths; intense eyes that did not laugh with him, but rather scanned the room, watchful. He was waiting for something, she could tell.His gaze fell upon her and then skimmed past her, uncaring, and Amiranth could not even begin to summon a smile for him, so shaken was she.She had not been allowed to stay that day to see what it was he anticipated. She had been in the company of Constanz, her sister-in-law, who kept a hard grip on her hand and smiled very tightly at the people who came near. Constanz had never been easy in crowds. When Amiranth's brother arrived, the three of them left the gathering nearly at once.Amiranth managed to throw the sun-gilded youth one last look over her shoulder. A corner of him remained in the light, but he had turned away from it, speaking with his hands to the person next to him. She had the impression she could still see his face, tanned and alert, with his slight smile and sparkling jet eyes.That had been the first time.She had had to wait another year and a half for her next opportunity. She was eleven by then, and very proud that she was finally allowed to put her hair up all the time. Amiranth remembered that day with vivid clarity, because it was a very brisk October evening, and she had worn a gown just finished for her, ivory and gold, to match her hair. It had seemed almost a shame to wear a veil, but she had done it anyway, too enthralled with growing up to leave it off.They had been on their way to London again. Her brother Augustin went to the king's court at least twice every year, and recently had allowed that Amiranth could accompany him and his wife on a regular basis. Amiranth was good with the baby, dear little Emile, and even Constanz agreed that she could be useful. Lily's parents were still alive then, so she had not yet come to live at Iving.They put up at a rustic inn for the night. The sun was still shining rosy gold over the horizon, but they stopped anyway, because the baby was fussy. Augustin had gone to speak with the innkeeper, and Constanz had retired to the room with her son, but Amiranth was restless and soon persuaded her nursemaid to take a walk with her outside.The air was fresh and clean. Most of the trees still held their autumn leaves, and when they caught the breeze, sunlight made them wink at her in flashes of scarlet and orange. Amiranth was lifting her skirts as she stepped carefully over a puddle of mud when the commotion began in the courtyard.Riders, five of them, with foaming horses and thundering hooves, splashing past Amiranth and her startled nurse with nary a look.But Amiranth had been looking. He was there, in the middle of them. His hair was longer now, windblown and mussed. He was speckled with mud and laughing at something one of the others had said. His face was angled away from her. He did not see her.Amiranth had felt time stop again, every bit of her fixed on him. The way his hands held the reins to his steed, his gloves taut over his knuckles. The ruddy flush across his cheekbones, darkening his swarthy skin. Even the faint curl to his lips, still suggesting something beyond his laughter, something bright and compelling in the black of his eyes.No, he did not see her at all. He and his group dismounted in the courtyard and barged their way into the inn, shouting for the innkeeper, trampling mud everywhere.The stableboys who had come out to take control of the mounts exchanged sour words, and her nurse was seizing Amiranth by the arm with scandalized exclamations, pushing her back inside to their private chamber, away from the rowdiness of his crowd.That night, with a casually deliberate inquiry over supper, Amiranth discovered his name: Tristan Geraint. Middle son of the Earl of Haverlocke.Wild and impetuous, Augustin had pronounced, slicing firmly into his mutton. An uncontrollable youth, the despair of his father. No good at all.Tristan, Amiranth thought, closing her eyes, savoring the sound of it. She didn't even mind that he had splashed mud all over her new gown.There came other times as she grew older, all of them brief, and all of them within the confines of the London court. She would sometimes see him drinking or talking, and worshiped him from a silent distance. On very good days she might pass him in a hallway with his friends, a swan amid a crowd of peacocks. If only she might reach out her hand, just a bit, she could brush against him, pretend it was an accident ... but oh, she did not dare.He was rarely without companions, yet it seemed to her that Tristan Geraint was always alone. It was the way he held himself, perhaps, that suggested restraint, or caution, or mayhap something darker. She could not say what. Yet even as he would smile and gesture and game with his peers, part of him looked always separate from the moment, nearly aloof. The corners of his mouth, so sensual and fine, held him back just enough.Amiranth imagined that she alone could perceive this aspect of him, that somehow she held the magic key to knowing him, the secret to revealing his hidden heart. That only she, in fact, could banish that loneliness about him.It was her destiny.He never saw her. No matter how hard she prayed, Tristan never even glanced at her, save when she was in some mass of people, and even then, only in passing. And she, for all her certainty of him, never quite gathered up the courage to speak to him first.And so Amiranth watched him from afar and dreamed and planned and practiced kissing the back of her hand, imagining how he might do it, were they ever introduced.They were not. But it did not stop her from dreaming.One year, something bad happened. No one would speak of it openly, but she knew that his parents had died of an illness, and then, very soon after, his older brother was killed in a hunt. There were rumors about him now, unpleasant things. His younger brother was whisked away to the countryside by a distant branch of the family; some said it was to spare him the sickness ... others muttered of more dire circumstances. She felt deeply for Tristan. Her own parents had died in an accident when she was but three. Her love was now an orphan, just as she and Lily were. Amiranth knew very well how it felt to be orphaned.She did not see Tristan again for a very long time.And then, by sheer luck -- or as a result of all that prayer -- she was in London for his knighting ceremony.It was to be a regal, stuffy affair, the bestowing of knighthood upon a group of the most noble and worthy of young men; it happened every year, exactly the same. Heated chamber. Perfumed air. Adults in vivid colors, speaking in whispers above her head. The quiet, rumbling voice of the king, too distant to hear well.Augustin always had seats assigned near the back of the crowded hall. Despite their exemplary bloodlines, the taxes from their estate were never enough to grant anything closer.Amiranth sat there, bored and fitful, unable to even see beyond the massively plumed hat of the man in front of her, when the squires began their procession down the walkway.Out of habit she searched for Tristan, and when he passed by, she almost could not believe it was true. She stood in place, prompting Constanz to press a restraining hand upon her arm, but Amiranth was staring at the retreati... Read more