Lucan by Susan Kearney

Book One of the Pendragon Legacy, Lucan is part fantasy, part romance and a wholly satisfying escapeby gl

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September 11, 2009: Synopsis:

Set at some future time when the Earth's survival is uncertain, Lucan is forced to travel to a distant planet of Pendragon in his search for King Arthur's Holy Grail. The Grail is the possible solution to the infertility problem that is facing mankind. If Lucan fails, his whole race faces extinction.

Lady Cael is the high priestess of Pendragon. Trained in her duties from a young age, Cael has been isolated since her family was forbidden to touch her at age five. She is equally revered and feared by her people because of her properties as a dragonshaper. It is forbidden to touch a dragonshaper. When she first meets Lucan, she is surprised that he is unafraid and treats her like a woman.

Lady Cael and Lucan narrowly escape the fire at the excavation site. Unsure of who sabotaged the search for the Holy Grail, Lady Cael and Lucan are forced into hiding. As they work together each with their own secrets, they fall deeply in love. When their secrets are revealed, Lady Cael and Lucan must work together to save those that they love and their threatened peoples.

Review:

This is the first Susan Kearney novel that I've read and the first in her new series The Pendragon Legacy. I loved Lucan. First, the characters draw you in. You find yourself sympathizing with Lady Cael from the start of the novel. She feels her isolation deeply but is committed to serving her family and her peopled as the High Priestess. You wish that she could have something beyond the Pendragon equivalent of the life of a vestal virgin. I admit to hoping that Lady Cael would indulge in a show of strength or black humor when faced with her jealous and mean spirited sisters. Lucan is a wonderful romantic lead: strong, a scholar of ancient languages, funny, fiercely protective of Lady Cael. I don't want to reveal too much of the plot, but Lucan reminded me of a mix of Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones with special powers.

Whether you're looking for a romantic read or a fun fantasy novel, I highly recommend Lucan. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next in the Pendragon Legacy. In the meantime, I'll look for Susan Kearney's older novels!

Publisher: Forever (September 5, 2009), 368 pages.

Courtesy of the publisher.

A Paranormal Page-Turnerby pjpuppymom

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September 04, 2009: No children have been born on Earth for two generations. Pollution has left her inhabitants sterile and the human race faces certain extinction but one man, archeologist and linguist, Lucan Rourke believes there is a way to reverse the sterility. He's heard the legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table and the mythical Holy Grail, a cup supposedly containing healing properties that legend says Arthur left in Avalon. Explorers have searched for Avalon for centuries without success but now, deep in a cave in the shadow of Cadbury Castle, Lucan has found a star map, thousands of years old, yet more accurately detailed than if it had been produced with today's space telescopes - a map detailing the path to a moon named Pendragon, King Arthur's last name, and printed below the moon, a single word - Avalon. All Lucan has to do to save his planet is find the Holy Grail.in Avalon.on Pendragon.on the other side of the universe.

A member of Pendragon's scientific team, Lady Cael also is searching for the Holy Grail, hoping to use its healing properties for the good of her people and to save the life of someone very dear to her. As her people's healer and High Priestess, she has been set apart from others since the age of five, both feared, and revered, fated to spend her life alone, never touched and never loved. Only Lucan, the newest member of the scientific team working to unlock the secrets of Avalon, has ever looked beyond her title and treated her as a person, as a woman, but she dare not encourage his interest for every Dragonian knows the penalty for touching the High Priestess is swift and irreversible.

When the scientific team is betrayed by those who seek the Holy Grail for corruptive personal power, it sends Lucan and Cael running for their lives. From freezing mountain tops to blazing beaches to secret caves and tunnels, they must learn to trust one another and work together if they hope to defeat the evil forces and free the Holy Grail. They must also deal with the blazing attraction between them. Lucan is a "well-traveled" man and Cael is virginal but when she is finally awakened to the pleasure of Lucan's touch she becomes a force to be reckoned with. This is a woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to demand it and Lucan is definitely up to the task. (pun intended) The sex is hot, passionate, at times almost animalistic in intensity, yet excruciatingly tender at others. These two seem to have been made for each other but secrets, Cael's unique heritage, Lucan's desperate need to save his planet, a corrupted military and another "offworlder" who may or may not be an ally, threaten to tear them, and their respective worlds, apart.

Susan Kearney captivated me with her action-packed, emotional tale of Arthurian legend, intergalactic space travel, dragonshapers and other inhabited worlds throughout our vast, and largely unexplored, universe. To be honest, I couldn't turn the pages of this book fast enough while, at the same time, I didn't want the story to end. Luckily, LUCAN is the first book in Kearney's The Pendragon Legacy trilogy which means I have two more to look forward to. RION, the second book in the trilogy will be released November 24th.