Kit Whitfield Livres

Everyone knows that if you fall afoul of the People, you must travel the miles to Gyrford, where uncounted generations of fairy-smiths have protected the county with cold iron, good counsel and unvarnished opinions about your common sense.But shielding the weak from the strong can make enemies. Ephraim Brady has money and power, and the bitter will to hurt those who cross him. And if he can't touch elder farrier Jedediah Smith, he can harm those the Smiths care about. The Smiths care about Tobias Ware, born on a night when the blazing fey dog Black Hal roared past the Wares' gate. Tobias doesn't understand the language or laws of men, and he can't keep away from the Bellame woods, where trespass is a hanging offence. If Toby is to survive, he needs protection. It should be a manageable job. Jedediah Smith has a head on his shoulders, and so too (mostly) does his son Matthew. Only Matthew's son John has turned out a little . . . uncommon. But he means well. It wasn't his fault the bramble bush put on a berry-head and started taking offence. Or that Tobias upset it. But John's not yet learned that if you follow the things other folk don't see, they might drag those you love into the path of ruin.

Without deepsmen guarding its shores, no nation can resist invasion - and without princes born of the royal blood, part landsman and part deepsman, no nation can maintain its allies in the ocean. The royal strain is fiercely protected, and the penalties for unauthorised breeding between landsmen and deepsmen are terrible.

Biology is destiny. For those born feet-first, life is normal. The world is a comfortable place, and every full moon night, you lock yourself in a secure room to fur up in peace. But for those born head-first, the damage done is more than just physical. For a non, locked in his or her human skin, is first and foremost a conscript, drafted at eighteen into DORLA, the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity. For a DORLA agent, a 'bareback', full moon means patrolling the silent night in search of citizens breaking the curfew. The rest of the month is spent mopping up the after-effects of the trespasses, the fights and the maulings. DORLA has lasted centuries and is no less hated now than it was when the Inquisition first set it up. Lola Galley, twenty-eight and already a scarred veteran, is assigned to defend a curfew-breaker who mutilated a good friend of hers. She doesn't want the case, but she's used to doing things she doesn't want. Only something happens: her maimed friend is murdered before her client can be tried. Lola wants justice. She'll settle for the truth. But in a divided world, asking for the truth may bring answers that you don't want to hear.

Jedediah's father walked out of his life forty years ago. Now he's back. He won't apologise, he doesn't explain - and, impossibly, he hasn't aged a day.

In Kit Whitfields Roman wird Venedig im Mittelalter lebendig, wo ein Pakt zwischen Menschen und Wasserwesen das Weltbild veränderte. Fünfhundert Jahre später herrschen Neid und Missgunst, während Prinzessin Anne um ihre Stellung am Hof kämpft, ohne zu wissen, dass ihr Schicksal mit einem Meermann verknüpft ist.