Twenty years ago Katherine Neville's groundbreaking thriller The Eight was a global bestseller -- a thriller in the style of The Da Vinci Code way before Dan Brown ever got there...
In this long-awaited sequel, Alexandra Solarin, a chess-wizard and only daughter of Cat Velis, the heroine of The Eight, arrives at her mother's Colorado lodge, only to discover that her mother has disappeared. Finding string of clues, Alexandra is soon joined by a group of people called there by her mother, including her aunt Lily, who explains the truth of Cat's past.
In 1822, as the fortress of Sultan Ali Pasha falls to the Turks, the Sultan's daughter Haidee attempts a desperate journey taking her through Albania, Morocco and Rome, while carrying an invaluable object and seeking the one man who can help her: the poet George Gordon, Lord Byron.
Ultimately both Alexandra and Haidee learn that their missions are even more desperate than they first seem, for both are players in a dangerous game, a game that began more than a millennium before either of them were born and that has the power to affect the fate of human civilization itself.
About the Author
Born in 1945, Katherine Neville has had an extraordinary life, living in almost every state in North America. Aside from her work as an international bestselling author, she has worked as an international computer executive, a painter, photographer, and a waitress. Katherine lives in Virginia, Washington and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Industry Reviews
Belated sequel to The Eight (1988), Neville's sprawling mystical-thriller debut novel about a quest to locate and decipher the secrets encrypted in an antique bejeweled chess set.Ten years after Alexandra Solarin's father was murdered at a chess tournament in Russia - and 30 years after he and her mother, Cat Velis, managed to scatter and hide the pieces of the Montglane Service to prevent their falling into the hands of evildoers - former chess prodigy Alexandra receives a summons to return to her family's vast Colorado estate to celebrate her mother's birthday. But Alexandra arrives to an empty house: no departing footprints in the snow, a fire burning mysteriously in the fireplace and no sign of her mother. However, a series of cryptic clues, together with a steady stream of visitors - including Alexandra's chess-whiz aunt Lily Rad, Russian chess grandmaster Vartan Azov, Alexandra's friend Nokomis Key and some insistent neighbors - soon put Alexandra on the track of a new and perilous adventure: One of the most powerful pieces of the Montglane Service, the black queen, has suddenly reappeared, threatening doom and destruction. In the Turkish-occupied Albania of 1822, meanwhile, young Haidee must seek out her true father, the romantic poet and Greek freedom fighter George Gordon, better known as Lord Byron. Along the way we learn why the Montglane Service is so dangerous and important: It was crafted in the eighth century by the greatest of Sufi alchemists, al-Jabir ibn Hayyan, who encoded within its structure the secrets of immortality, the transmutation of elements and what-all.Packed with the sort of bamboozling twaddle that should come with a warning: Belief in Alchemy Required. Still, fans of The Eight, Dan Brown, etc., will jump right in. (Kirkus Reviews)
