Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Black Horses for the King by Anne McCaffrey


Copyright: 1996
Publisher: Del Rey
Genre: YA
Pages: 217
Challenges: Arthurian Challenge, Year of the Historical, Young Adult
New-to-me Author: yes
Author's Website



Simple Description:
This is a different twist on the Arthurian novels. This is a book before King Arthur is King Arthur. He does live at Camelot but he isn't with Guinevere yet. Oh yeah, and forget Merlin because he isn't in this story either. In fact, this is more a story of a young boy who works for Arthur.

Galwyn Varianus works for his mean Uncle aboard his ship. His father has passed away and all feel he should be greatful that his Uncle lets him work for him. His Uncle is mean and so are the other sailors. Galwyn's life changes for the better when Lord Artos (King Arthur) uses his Uncle's ship to go to the Continent. Lord Artos is in search of horses. Big horses. Horses that will help him and his men defeat the Saxon invaders. Galwyn helps Lord Artos in the port city because he can speak the language. Galwyn then runs away from his Uncle, buys a horse, and goes after Lord Artos in hopes of working for him and helping him with the horses.

Lord Artos gladly takes him in. Soon he buys the horses, gets the horses to his farm, and Galwyn is left at the farm to help tend the horses and learn about taking care of them. There Galwyn finally feels happy and is excited to be working with the horses. He also helps in the process of making horse sandals to fit the horses hooves.

Now what you really want to know....my thoughts:
I thought this was a great YA book. It was a fun take an an Arthurian legend book too. You can't help but love Galwyn and hope he gets away from his Uncle and finds a place working for Arthur.

I didn't realize this book was published in the late 1990's and wondered why I didn't read it as a kid. Well, I was already in highschool when it was published. haha! I'm so glad I found it and read it now though, it's definitely one that I recommend to others.



This book is part of my collection and was either bought or given to me.

2 comments:

bermudaonion said...

My sister would probably enjoy this one!

Taminator said...

I read this one years ago and had pretty much forgotten it until I read your review. It was a good read all the way back then, too! Glad you enjoyed it.