Avalon

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Summary: avalon - the Saga of Merewyn
Review: I read Avalon about six years ago, when I was sixteen. My mother read it twenty-seven years ago, about five years before I was born. That's how I came to be named Merewyn. I hated my name until I read Avalon. Merewyn is a cool character, and now I'm proud to be named Merewyn.

Rating:
Summary: Avalon by Anya Seton
Review: I read Avalon about six years ago, when I was sixteen. My mother read it twenty-seven years ago, about five years before I was born. That's how I came to be named Merewyn. I hated my name until I read Avalon. Merewyn is a cool character, and now I'm proud to be named Merewyn.

Rating:
Summary: ALL Anya Setons books
Review: I was reading comments about Anya Seton's books, and there was one I had to heartily agree with.... to please have Seton's books printed again... as gift box sets, what a wonderful idea! She is one author who truly brings to life characters and the era, I find they haunt me. I read "Katherine" 33 years ago, I plan on re-reading that and probably others. She is a special author - please bring those books back!

Rating:
Summary: This book was wonderful
Review: Just wanted to add my two cents... why doesn't some publisher reissue all of Anya Seton's novels? A couple of boxed sets would be nice... These are romances for thinking people -- well written, historically accurate, gripping, memorble. I would love to buy a set. I originally read library copies many years ago.

Rating:
Summary: avalon - the Saga of Merewyn
Review: This is a wonderful, romantic tale, almost a saga. Though the main character is fictional, the story itself is set in an interesting historical period and the details are accurate.

Merewyn leaves Cornwall at fifteen, after the death of her mother. She travels into England in the company of Rumon, who is the historical figure Romieux de Provence, shipwrecked on the Cornish coast. Merewyn works for some time at England's royal court and then stays at a nunnery, following the assassination of one unfortunate English king. Fate intervenes dramatically with her life when she has to return to Cornwall after the death of the Abbess of her convent.

Anya Seton has woven a charming story around the figure of Rumon, a Cornish saint. Merewyn believes herself descended from the ancient, royal line of King Arthur. This is a sustaining myth in her life. Merewyn's actual parentage is far less romantic and has to do with Viking raids on the Cornish coast.

The story of the star-crossed love of Merewyn and Rumon is just one strand of this story. England in the tenth century was subject to periodic invasion from the Norsemen - this is a major part of the plot, which is romantic yet plausible. Merewyn does a great deal of travelling both planned and unexpected, to find her real identity.

I first read this novel many years ago, and have since read it many times. I warmly recommend it to new readers.