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    The Fool's Tale: A Novel
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    The Fool's Tale: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Fool's Tale: A Novel
    Ebook650 pages10 hours

    The Fool's Tale: A Novel

    By Nicole Galland

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Wales, 1198. A time of treachery, passion, and uncertainty. King Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon, known as Noble, struggles to protect his small kingdom from foes outside and inside his borders. Pressured into a marriage of political convenience, he takes as his bride the young, headstrong Isabel Mortimer, niece of his powerful English nemesis.

    Through strength of character, Isabel wins her husband's grudging respect, but finds the Welsh court backward and barbaric, and is soon engaged in a battle of wills against Gwirion, the king's oldest, oddest, and most trusted friend. Before long, however, Gwirion and Isabel's mutual animosity is abruptly transformed, and the king finds himself as threatened by loved ones as by the enemies who menace his crown.

    A masterful novel by a gifted storyteller, The Fool's Tale combines vivid historical fiction, compelling political intrigue, and passionate romance to create an intimate drama of three individuals bound -- and undone -- by love and loyalty.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061743757
    Unavailable
    The Fool's Tale: A Novel
    Author

    Nicole Galland

    Nicole Galland is the author of the historical novels Godiva; I, Iago; Crossed, Revenge of the Rose; and The Fool’s Tale; as well as the contemporary romantic comedies On the Same Page and Stepdog, and the New York Times bestselling near-future thriller The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Neal Stephenson).

    Read more from Nicole Galland

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    Reviews for The Fool's Tale

    3.5/5

    98 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      superb
    • 5/5
      I wrote a glowing recommendation of this book somewhere. Just, five stars. Fantastic book. It's a hard task to take 3 main characters who are all unlikable but still keep a reader invested in the story. In all 3 cases their unlikability is entirely understandable - they have views, opinions, and actions that are annoying now but make total sense for the setting, or else they're just being stubborn and refusing to understand the other person (for instance, Isabel can come off annoying because she's refusing to do anything to try to fit into the Welsh kingdom she is now the queen of; but on the other hand, "Noble" comes off obnoxious because he's making absolutely no effort to make his new wife and queen comfortable in this new setting).Great book, 5 stars, glowing recommendation, no complaints.
    • 3/5
      Set in England in 12th century, the Welsh King Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon marries Isabel, the niece of an English Baron in an attempt to produce an heir and unite warring tribes. Isabel must vie for the King's affection with Gwirion, the King's fool. A quick light read.
    • 4/5
      The way to tell if a book is good is if the characters and stories stayed with you when you put the book down....this passed the test. Beautiful story about love, obsession, and betrayel of every kind. I enjoyed it alot even if it broke my heart a bit.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book-- a really different premise for a historical novel. No War of the Roses or Tudors in sight!
    • 4/5
      At the core of it, this book is about three people, and the relationships between them. Even the author says that. It is set in medieval Wales, but that matters little to the story as Galland basically ignores history and sets up her own story mostly exclusive of reality. For once, I didn't mind, because the characters were extremely compelling, and she didn't do much damage to actual history. Not much happens for most of the book except interaction between the characters, but that alone is enthralling. The ending threw me, even though I'd read reviews saying it was unexpected, and I think will cause the book to linger in my mind far more than it would have otherwise. I truly cared for Gwirion and Isabel. Noble, I'm not so sure of, because I found his ways callous and unforgivable. It is true that the characters didn't seem particularly medieval, but I really just took the story for what the author said it was - three people that could have been anywhere.Overall, this book is very worth reading, even for those who don't like historical fiction.
    • 4/5
      What a strange and compelling book. Although it purports to be historical fiction, it really isn't. It is a story set in an historical period. There is enough in the setting and the use of Welsh phrases and culture to make it historical fiction, but there is almost nothing of the real history or conflicts of the time. There is no real depth to the details about the conflicts, or the politics of the region. A summary of the people and their positions, and a brief explanation, but then it is left undeveloped. Galland brings it in when she needs an outside pressure on the main characters. But the historical issues are not the focus of the book.The story is about 3 people the Welsh King, Noble, his ill-defined companion, Gwirion, who can be considered a fool or a parasite, and the new English wife to the King, Isabel a Mortimer. The Mortimer family are long time enemies of the Welsh. They are forced together by the political marriage of Noble and Isabel in the small, backward Welsh Kingdom on the English border.The book goes on and on. It is over 500 pages though it covers only a year in their lives. There is activity at the start, and at the end, but the middle is rather spare of events. The author uses the time to build up the characters, their relationships and to make the reader care about them. Although the book is too long, it did work, I cared about them. The book also reads very, very quickly. Galland switches between the 3 as the POV, so that you get to know what is going on in all 3 of them. The story blends the characters with a narrator and is the perfect balance between detail and brevity. I kept reading, even though it was more of a romance than a true work of historical fiction. The setting and the writing style make it interesting to be in that world.We are never sure about Noble and Gwirion, but Isabel is very straightforward. Noble and Gwirion have a bond that stretches back to childhood. Isabel has to not only figure out Welsh customs and culture, and a new husband, but the strange Gwirion who can get away with any misbehavior and is the most important person in the world to Noble. Noble's close family have died, and he is exclusively heterosexual. The Welsh at court treat Isabel as an outsider, so there are no easy answers about Noble and Gwirion. At the same time, Noble and Gwirion have to change their lives to include this outside woman who belongs to the enemy camp.The ending of the book, is quite searing, and not something I saw coming. It makes the book worth reading.
    • 5/5
      After finishing a compelling novel, it is increasingly hard to draw myself away from that world, and to once again engage myself in "reality." Rather like the dazed feeling of walking out of a movie in which you were completely involved, perhaps about a more romantic era long past, only to find yourself blinking in the bright sunlight of a modern parking lot. Upon finishing The Fool's Tale by Nicole Galland this evening, after I put the book down I was surprised to look around me and see only my untidy bedroom rather than the intricate world of a Welsh Kingdom which the author had created. Although love and "romance" in the modern sensibility is one of the main focuses of this book, it is by and large a historical novel, the political truths embellished slightly by the author, centering around three main characters, all equally enigmatic. The king of Maelienydd, known to his intimates as Noble, is the (literally) ferociously affectionate monarch of the small kingdom bordering England. He takes as a wife Isabel, the niece of an English baron, Mortimer, who just happens to have murdered his father. The marriage is nothing more than political, as marriages then so often were, but as the story continues Isabel is hard-pressed to live up to her part of the "bargain" in Noble's eyes, as she provides him fecundity in neither an heir nor strategic power. Throw into this mix Gwirion, the king's oldest and closest companion, a foundling who just happened to save Noble's life the day his father was killed by Mortimer, and with whom the king has a bond greater than blood or marriage. The new queen bestows upon him the English title of "fool," and that is certainly what he appears to be on the surface. More than that, he is the king's chief source of comfort. That is, until the disgust that Gwirion and Isabel regard each other with throughout half the novel turns to something else, something concocted almost by chance when they are held hostage together in the same room. As if the previous relations weren't tense enough, the rest of the novel had me on edge as the new lovers debate whether the king knows about them. On top of it all, the kingdom is being threated by all sides, English and Welsh. The characters really are hard to decipher, such as the king, who made me like him and hate him in turns, sometimes both at once. The crafty writing engaged me and drove me mad as sometimes I could guess exactly what was going to happen next, and other times what happened next completely floored me. Even when I suspected what was to become (the ending! wooo, if only you knew! but I'm not going to tell you), it shocked me when it did. That, indeed, is a creative force at work, one I envy. To foreshadow the outcome, but still leave you in tears (as it left me) in the end. Yes, the ending made me cry. Not uncommon, but this time the tears stung at my heart as I could actually feel a lover's empathy. The loss of love (have I betrayed too much?) made me miss my own all the more. All right, I'll say it. Why must good writers feel the need to kill off beloved characters? (J.K. Rowling, I'm talking to you too.) Sure, it gives off an air of Shakespearean-worthy tragedy, but I'd be just as content with a happily-ever-after. It's amazing, even to me, how much I'm affected by a fictional story. Two hours later, and I'm still fuming and mourning over the ending, as if the events had any personal effect on me. In a way, they have; forget that expression about eyes being a window to the soul. If you want the inside scoop on someone's soul, take a look at the books they read. I truly believe that each word we consume shapes our spirit, for better or worse, and in turn affects our demeanor. The Fool's Tale. A good book, you should read it, but now I'm off in search of something more lighthearted. Another Jane Austen, perhaps.