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Stephen J Rivelle
Carroll & Graf, 1996, 448pp
List price: $13.95, £6.99
ISBN: 0786704624

Crusades Bookshop Review:
The fictionalised diary of Duke Roger of Lunel, who travels on the First Crusade to assuage the guilt of a sexual indiscretion. Rivel presents the work as a translation of a long-lost manuscript written by his fictional ancestor, Roger l'Escrivel.

En route, Roger faces greed, betrayal, and unspeakable violence in a story that is generally faithful to the events. The characterisations might owe more to post-Vietnam USA than to post-Manzikert Europe, but the story is never-the-less a cracking read.

From the cover:

In "A Booke of Days", Rivele brilliantly recreates the First Crusade of 1096, a brutal, ungodly expedition of greed and conquest. A young French nobleman, Roger, Duke of Lunel, leaves his home to join the forces to recapture Jerusalem, yet the holy crusade turns horribly wrong as he witnesses savagery, betrayal, and deceit all around him, and he begins to believe that he will never return home. A first novel.

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Copyright © 1999 Dr Tom Rees