This is in no way a reflection of my overall enjoyment of the novel.
I found this story, and the entire history surrounding it, absolutely fascinating right from the get go, so you’ll have to forgive me for concentrating within this review on the historic parts of Court of Lions more than the modern story. While Blessings is a character that stems from the author’s imagination, the story he tells is very real, that of the fall of Granada, but with a more sympathetic leaning towards Momo, the last sultan, who, as the author points out, has on a whole been treated rather cruelly by other historic retellings. The story that Blessings recounts is fully tragic, it’s history already available to us, while Kate’s is more hopeful, on account of it being entirely fictitious. In the modern day, we have Kate Fordham, hiding out in Granada from a shockingly brutal past and in the 15th century, we have Blessings, companion to Prince Abu Abdullah Mohammed, the last Sultan of Granada, affectionately known as Momo (which I will use for the remainder of this review). There are two stories being told within the pages of Court of Lions, both of which are largely set in the Moorish palace complex in Granada, the Alhambra, but spanning centuries apart. My edition is the one with the beautiful gold detailing all over it, and while they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, in this case, it’s impossible not to! It’s quite glorious to look at and perfectly conveys the sumptuous setting of the novel. Born of love, in a time of danger and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate’s life forever.Īn epic saga of romance and redemption, Court of Lions brings one of the great hinge-points in human history to life, telling the stories of a modern woman and the last Moorish sultan of Granada, as they both move towards their cataclysmic destinies.Ĭourt of Lions is a stunning novel, the historic detail alone earning it five stars. It has lain undiscovered since before the Fall of Granada in 1492, when the city was surrendered to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.
Upon it, in strange symbols, has been inscribed a message from another age. One day in the glorious gardens of the Alhambra, once home to Sultan Abu Abdullah Mohammed, also known as Boabdil, Kate finds a scrap of paper hidden in one of the ancient walls.
Kate Fordham, escaping terrible trauma, has fled to the beautiful sunlit city of Granada, the ancient capital of the Moors in Spain, where she is scraping by with an unfulfilling job in a busy bar.
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