"Imagine you had a prophecy you're the advent of the Promised One, the Right Guide and the Champion of Light. You'd believe that, right? And if you didn't, you'd love to meet people who do."Temujin has an awkward time with the prophecy about him and he's happy to remain unknown. However, war and politics rudely intrude.Toqtoa, a shaman and a king from the Great North Forest, has watched the Mongols sink into squalor and he takes his opportunity to step onto the grass highway. "History doesn't happen in the forest. It happens on the steppe." This king with his spirits has history in his sights, while Temujin thinks of nothing but his stolen wife Borte.Is history run by fate and royal spirits? By history-makers like Toqtoa, or by accident? Borte, in captivity, cannot see her half-child husband a rival to this warlock king. Nor wishes to. Bryn Hammond (she/her, and queer) lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. She grew up on ancient and medieval epics, the Arthur cycle original and modern, nineteenth-century novelists, particularly Russian and French, and out of fashion poets, namely Algernon Swinburne. Always a writer – to the neglect of other paths in life that might have been more sensible -- she found the perfect story in The Secret History of the Mongols, a thirteenth-century prose and verse account of Chinggis Khan. Both epic and intimate, Amgalant explores the story found in the Secret History of the Mongols. Much of this source is still secret -- neglected in Western accounts. People who knew Temujin gathered their stories into a communal memoir, which even conserves Temujin's own words. This is the inside story.'In a word, the writing is extraordinary... To humanize one of history's most infamous conquerors is not an enviable task.''Hammond's writing is rich, nuanced, humorous... Amgalant is a rare and different, wonderful read.'If you like the historical fiction of Hilary Mantel, Mary Renault or Dorothy Dunnett, the Amgalant series is for you.
