Ysabel

Ysabel is a contemporary fantasy, a departure for Guy Gavriel Kay, and its hero is a teenager. Ned Marriner, fifteen and Canadian, is spending six weeks in Provence with his father, Edward, a famous photographer. His mother, Meghan, a doctor, is away in Sudan with Doctors Without Borders. Wandering into the cathedral of Saint-Sauveur in Aix while his father works outside, Ned meets Kate Wenger, an American exchange student who knows the building's history, and in the ancient baptistry a scarred man with a knife tells them they have "blundered into a corner of a very old story."

The story is a love triangle two and a half thousand years old. Two men, Phelan and Cadell, have fought over the same woman, Ysabel, through the centuries, coming back again and again to find her. On the eve of Beltaine, at the ancient site of Entremont, she takes possession of Melanie, the father's young assistant. This time she sets the men a search instead of a fight: whoever finds her in three days wins. Ned discovers he has powers of his own, and his family gathers around him: his father; his mother, whom he asks to come home from Sudan; his Aunt Kim, who senses he is in trouble and comes at once; and her husband, Dave. Kim, it turns out, has gifts like his own. Ned reaches Mont Sainte-Victoire first and finds Ysabel in a cavern. At her command Phelan and Cadell leap into a chasm, ending the old cycle, and Melanie comes back unharmed.

This is simpler and more direct than Kay's historical fantasies, with a fifteen year old hero and a strong feel for Provence and its Roman and Celtic past. The second half is a race against time. Publishers Weekly predicted it would "enthrall mainstream as well as fantasy readers." It suits teenagers and adults alike, and readers of Kay's Fionavar Tapestry will get extra pleasure from it.