R- "The Hound and the Falcon" series
Although I've seen at least three other books Tarr has written, I've been reluctant to read them because The Hound and the Falcon was so well done, and there is nothing more she could have said about the main character, whom I love. So for now this review deals only with the three books bound together under one cover known as The Hound and the Falcon. The books are not completely continuous (there are gaps between the end of one and the start of the next) but they cover all the important points of Alf's life, and therefore go well together as a single volume.
The Isle of Glass introduces us to Brother Alfred, a devout Jeromite monk in the time of Richard the Lionheart who also happens to be an immortal elf, healer and prophet. In Tarr's history (which apart from the elves is accurate and extremely well-done) there are changelings, elves, who appear either as orphans or as children of human parents. These beings are all young-looking, beautiful, can command magic, and, to Alf's great pain, are believed not to have souls. Alf's friend and Abbot thrusts him out into the world of politics and war when a messenger from the Elvenking in the country of Rhyiana finds refuge in the Abbey, and he struggles to reconcile what the Church tells him about his "cursed" origins and his pure faith in God while at the same time trying to live in the secular world.
In the Golden Horn, which begins some years after the end of the Isle of Glass, Alf has finished a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and goes to see Constantinople before the Frankish army overruns the city and ruins its beauty. He has become a man of the world and renounced his vows as a priest, although not by any means his faith. In the city he meets a Greek family who adopts him as one of their own and finds him work in the local hospital, and he tries to stem the madness that a Crusading army brings to the city before it's too late.
Finally, in The Hounds of God, Alf struggles to save his beloved and his people from the Pauline monks, who wish to scour the supposed devil-sent elves from the face of the earth. Providing more detail about the plots of the later two books would ruin some of the surprises, so these are necessarily brief synopses. But if you like the first book at all, it's hard to stop without finishing the last. Tarr has a knack for weaving history and fantasy that makes it easy to believe in Alf as part of our own history, and a sure grasp of the Catholic Church and its influence in this time period, not to mention a wonderful set of characters.
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Last Updated: March 17, 1999
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