Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) by Philippa Gregory (Epub)

Description

The second exciting title in this atmospheric Order of Darkness YA series from the Queen of Historical Fiction!

User’s Reviews

Philippa Gregory is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Many of her works have been adapted for the screen including The Other Boleyn Girl. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She founded Gardens for the Gambia, a charity to dig wells in poor rural schools in The Gambia, and has provided nearly 200 wells. She welcomes visitors to her website PhilippaGregory.com. From School Library Journal Gr 9 Up—It is 1453, and Luca Vero is an inquirer, sent by the head of a mysterious order to investigate signs of the End of Days. In this sequel, Luca and his companions, his servant, Freize; the Lady Isolde and her servant, Ishraq; and the clerk and recorder Brother Peter, continue their journey across Europe. Although the pace is slow in the beginning, reflecting the pace of the travelers, the action explodes midway when a tsunami drowns hundreds of children on a pilgrimage lead by the prophet Johann. This cataclysmic event focuses the reader on the novel’s philosophical motif: the clash of reason and belief, science and superstition. Each character embodies aspects of this debate, principally Ishraq, a half-Arabic scholar, representing science and reason, and Luca, who, despite his role of church inquirer, appears on the verge of questioning his beliefs and his mission. There is also the leader of the Order of Darkness, willing to use any means to root out and defeat the infidel Ottoman Empire, which his order believes is responsible for the End of Days. Gregory has crafted a novel full of depth and texture that stands on its own. Readers who have not read the first book will be inspired to do so after finishing this one and will eagerly await the next installment.—Nina Sachs, Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, ME –This text refers to the hardcover edition. From Booklist Book two of Gregory’s four-volume Order of Darkness series continues young Luca’s quest at the behest of a mysterious religious order to travel the realm seeking signs of the end of days. When a tsunami floods a coastal Italian village in 1453, overwhelming a children’s crusade to Jerusalem, Luca ponders the scene grimly, thinking that it has swept up his dearest friend along with the scores of others. Might the disaster be a sign of the end? Punishment for sin? The great flood stalls his journey but not the action in this highly packed adventure. At one pivotal dramatic point, Isolde and Ishraq, two young women in Luca’s retinue, stand accused as stormbringers, dark arts practitioners who brought on the flood deliberately. Gregory’s lively characterizations pull the reader in. She skillfully weaves the threads of history through the suspenseful narrative, playing out the clash between Christendom and Islam in a small medieval town. The shiver of horror at the end will have fans wondering how far the quest might venture to the dark side. Grades 8-11. –Anne OMalley –This text refers to the hardcover edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Stormbringers THE ROAD FROM ROME TO PESCARA, ITALY, NOVEMBER 1453 The five travelers on horseback on the rutted track to Pescara made everyone turn and stare: from the woman who brought them weak ale in a roadside inn, to the peasant building with a hewn stone wall by the side of the road, to the boy trailing home from school to work in his father’s vineyard. Everyone smiled at the radiance of the handsome couple at the front of the little cavalcade, for they were beautiful, young and—as anyone could see—falling in love. “But where’s it all going to end, d’you think?” Freize asked Ishraq, nodding ahead to Luca and Isolde as they rode along the ruler-straight track that ran due east toward the Adriatic coast. It was golden autumn weather and, though the deeply scored ruts in the dirt road would be impassable in winter-time, the going was good for now, the horses were strong and they were making excellent time to the coast. Freize, a square-faced young man with a ready smile, only a few years older than his master Luca, didn’t wait for Ishraq’s response. “He’s head over heels in love with her,” he continued, “and if he had lived in the world and ever met a girl before, he would know to be on his guard. But he was in the monastery as a skinny child, and so he thinks her an angel descended from heaven. She’s as golden haired and beautiful as any fresco in the monastery. It’ll end in tears, she’ll break his heart.” Ishraq hesitated to reply. Her dark eyes were fixed on the two figures ahead of them. “Why assume it will be him who gets hurt? What if he breaks her heart?” she asked. “For I have never seen Isolde like this with any other boy. And he will be her first love too. For all that she was raised as a lady in the castle, there were no passing knights allowed, and no troubadours came to visit singing of love. Don’t think it was like a ballad, with ladies and chevaliers and roses thrown down from a barred window; she was very strictly brought up. Her father trained her up to be the lady of the castle and he expected her to rule his lands. But her brother betrayed her and sent her to a nunnery. These days on the road are her first chance to be free in the real world—mine too. No wonder she is happy. “And, anyway, I think that it’s wonderful that the first man she meets should be Luca. He’s about our age, the most handsome man we’ve—I mean she’s—ever met; he’s kind, he’s really charming and he can’t take his eyes off her. What girl wouldn’t fall in love with him on sight?” “There is another young man she sees daily,” Freize suggested. “Practical, kind, good with animals, strong, willing, useful . . . and handsome. Most people would say handsome, I think. Some would probably say irresistible.” Ishraq delighted in misunderstanding him, looking into his broad smiling face and taking in his blue honest eyes. “You mean Brother Peter?” She glanced behind them at the older clerk who followed leading the donkey. “Oh no, he’s much too serious for her, and besides he doesn’t even like her. He thinks the two of us will distract you from your mission.” “Well, you do!” Freize gave up teasing Ishraq and returned to his main concern. “Luca is commissioned by the Pope himself to understand the last days of the world. He’s been sent out with a mission to understand the end of days. If it’s to be the terrible day of judgment tomorrow or the day after—as they all seem to think—he shouldn’t be spending his last moments on earth giggling with an ex-nun.” “I think he could do nothing better,” Ishraq said stoutly. “He’s a handsome young man, finding his way in the world, and Isolde is a beautiful girl just escaped from the rule of her family and the command of men. What better way could they spend the last days of the world than falling in love?” “Well, you only think that because you’re not a Christian but some sort of pagan,” Freize returned roundly, pointing to her pantaloons under her sweeping cape and the sandals on her bare feet. “And you lack all sense of how important we are. He has to report to the Pope for all the signs that the world is about to end, for all the manifestations of evil in the world. He’s young, but he is a member of a most important Order. A secret Order, a secret papal Order.” She nods. “I do, so often, lack a sense of how very important men are. You do right to reproach me.” He heard, at once, the ripple of laughter in her voice, and he could not help but delight in her staunch sense of independence. “We are important,” he insisted. “We men rule the world, and you should have more respect for me.” “Aren’t you a mere servant?” she teased. “And you are—a what?” he demanded. “An Arab slave? A scholar? A heretic? A servant? Nobody seems to know quite what you are. An animal like a unicorn, said to be very strange and marvelous but actually rarely seen and probably good for nothing.” “Oh, I don’t know,” she said comfortably. “I was raised by my dark-skinned beautiful mother in a strange land to always be sure who I was—even if nobody else knew.” “A unicorn, indeed,” he said. She smiled. “Perhaps.” “You certainly have the air of a young woman who knows her own mind. It’s very unmaidenly.” “But of course, I do wonder what will become of us both,” she conceded more seriously. “We have to find Isolde’s godfather’s son, Count Wladislaw, and then we have to convince him to order her brother to give back her castle and lands. What if he refuses to help us? What shall we do then? However will she get home? Really, whether she’s in love with Luca or not is the least of our worries.” Ahead of them, Isolde threw back her head and laughed aloud at something Luca had whispered to her. “Aye, she looks worried sick,” Freize remarked. “We are happy, Inshallah,” she said. “She is easier in her mind than she has been in months, ever since the death of her father. And if, as your Pope thinks, the world is going to end, then we might as well be happy today and not worry about the future.” The fifth member of their party, Brother Peter, brought his horse up alongside them. “We’ll be coming into the village of Piccolo as the sun sets,” he said. “Brother Luca should not be riding with the woman. It looks . . .” He paused, searching for the right reproof . . . . “Normal?” Ishraq offered impertinently. “Happy,” Freize agreed. “Improper,” Brother Peter corrected them. “At best it looks informal, and as if he were not a young man promised to the Church.” He turned to Ishraq. “Your lady should ride alongside you, both of you with your heads down and your eyes on the ground, like maidens with pure minds, and you should speak only to each other, and that seldom and very quietly. Brother Luca should ride alone in prayer, or with me in thoughtful conversation. And, anyway, I have our orders.” At once, Freize slapped his hand to his forehead. “The sealed orders!” he exclaimed wrathfully. “Any time we are minding our own business and going quietly to somewhere, a pleasant inn ahead of us, perhaps a couple of days with nothing to do but feed up the horses and rest ourselves, out come the sealed orders and we are sent off to inquire into God knows what!” “We are on a mission of inquiry,” Brother Peter said quietly. “Of course we have sealed orders, which I am commanded to open and read at certain times. Of course we are sent to inquire. The very point of this journey is not—whatever some people may think—to ride from one pleasant inn to another, meeting women, but to discover what signs there are of the end of days, of the end of the world. And I have to open these orders at sunset today, and discover where we are to go next and what we are to inspect.” Freize put two fingers in his mouth and made an ear-piercing whistle. At once the two lead horses, obedient to his signal, stopped in their tracks. Luca and Isolde turned round and rode the few paces back to where the others were halted under the shade of some thick pine trees. The scent of the resin was as powerful as perfume in the warm evening air. The horses’ hooves crunched on the fallen pinecones and their shadows were long on the pale sandy soil. “New orders,” Freize said to his master Luca, nodding at Brother Peter, who took a cream-colored manuscript, heavily sealed with red wax and ribbons, from the inside pocket of his jacket. To Brother Peter he turned and said curiously: “How many more of them have you got tucked away in there?” The older man did not trouble to answer the servant. With the little group watching he broke the seals in silence and unfolded the stiff paper. He read, and they saw him give a little sigh of disappointment. “Not back to Rome!” Freize begged him, unable to bear the suspense for a moment longer. “Tell me we don’t have to turn round and go back to the old life!” He caught Ishraq’s gleam of amusement. “The inquiry is an arduous duty,” he corrected himself quickly. “But I don’t want to leave it incomplete. I have a sense of duty, of obligation.” “You’d do anything rather than return to the monastery and be a kitchen lad again,” she said accurately. “Just as I would rather be here than serving as a lady companion in an isolated castle. At least we are free, and every day we wake up and know that anything could happen.” “I remind you, we don’t travel for our own pleasure,” Brother Peter said sternly, ignoring their comments. “We are commanded to go to the fishing village of Piccolo, take a ship across the sea to Split and travel onward to Zagreb. We are to take the pilgrims’ road to the chapels of St. George and of St. Martin at Our Lady’s church outside Zagreb.” There was a muffled gasp from Isolde. “Zagreb!” A quick gesture from Luca as he reached out for her, and then snatched back his hand, remembering that he might not touch her, betrayed him too. “We travel on your road,” he said, the joy in his voice audible to everyone. “We can stay together.” The flash of assent from her dark blue eyes was ignored by Brother Peter, who was deep in the new orders. “We are to inquire on the way as to anything we see that is out of the ordinary,” he read. “We are to stop and set up an inquiry if we encounter anything that indicates the work of Satan, the rise of unknown fears, the evidence of the wickedness of man or the end of days.” He stopped reading and refolded the letter, looking at the four young people. “And so, it seems, since Zagreb is on the way to Budapest, and since the ladies insist that they must go to Budapest to seek Count Wladislaw, that God Himself wills that we must travel the same road as these young ladies.” Isolde had herself well under control by the time Brother Peter raised his eyes to her. She kept her gaze down, careful not to look at Luca. “Of course we would be grateful for your company,” she said demurely. “But this is a famous pilgrims’ road. There will be other people who will be going the same way. We can join them. We don’t need to burden you.” The bright look in Luca’s face told her that she was no burden, but Brother Peter answered before anyone else could speak. “Certainly, I would advise that as soon as you meet with a party with ladies traveling to Budapest you should join them. We cannot be guides and guardians for you. We have to serve a great mission; and you are young women—however much you try to behave with modesty—you cannot help but be distracting and misleading.” “Saved our bacon at Vittorito,” Freize observed quietly. He nodded toward Ishraq. “She can fight and shoot an arrow, and knows medicine too. Hard to find anyone more useful as a traveling companion. Hard to find a better comrade on a dangerous journey.” “Clearly distracting,” Brother Peter sternly repeated. “As they say, they will leave us when they find a suitable party to join,” Luca ruled. His delight that he was to be with Isolde for another night, and another after that, even if it was only a few more nights, was clear to everyone, especially to her. Her dark blue eyes met his hazel ones in a long silent look. “You don’t even ask what we are to do at the sacred site?” Brother Peter demanded reproachfully. “At the chapels? You don’t even want to know that there are reports of heresy that we are to discover?” “Yes, of course,” Luca said quickly. “You must tell me what we are to see. I will study. I will need to think about it. I will create a full inquiry and you shall write the report and send it to the lord of our Order, for the Pope to see. We shall do our work, as commanded by our lord, by the Pope and by God Himself.” “And best of all, we can get a good dinner in Piccolo,” Freize remarked cheerfully, looking at the setting sun. “And tomorrow morning will be time enough to worry about hiring a boat to sail across to Croatia.” –This text refers to the hardcover edition. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published on UniedVRG. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ In this second book, we really get the feeling of what it must have been like to go on a walking pilgrimage meeting different peoples and encountering strange situations. Very Chaucerian in its concept. Another can’t put it down and up to 3AM to finish it. Thanks again, Philippa, for the solid research, great insights, and spellbinding storytelling.

⭐ There are some indications this story was targeted for Teens and young adults, but i got a big kick out of it.It’s off the beaten track for Phillipa Gregory, but a good writer is a good writer and she is one of the best.I really got into the story of the young heiress done out of her inheritance by a greedy brother and hisconniving lover. yeah, I know it sounds formulaic, but she brought the characters to life and makes youfeel for their circumstances. The other protagonist Luc has been tasked by some religious order (known as’The Order of Darkness’ to obey orders from as high as the Pope and investigate circumstances whereChristianity seems to be taking a bad turn. This is the middle ages where witches got burned andsuperstition was rife, so lots of material here. Luc is a novitiate in the priesthood and he travels outon his first investigation with one of the Brothers as a clerk to keep records of their investigations anda happy fellow Frieze, who was a servant at the monastery. I’ve read the two books she’s written in theseries and enjoyed both.Gramster A.

⭐ I loved the Changling, but this book was so boring I had a hard time making it to the end. I was very disappointed. The story was repetitive and I was also disappointed in the change of the characters from the first book. Isolde became an insecure whiny girl and Ishrac became like a woman in heat. Totally different from the first book in which they were both strong intelligent women. Lame ending, no suspense and just a big let down. I wont be reading book three.

⭐ I kept putting off writing this review as at first I just wanted to rave about how good it was. Then I wanted to complain about the setting. Then I wanted to praise the story and the characters. Then I was annoyed that there will have to be another book to finish the quest.I must face it. This book was brilliant. It works as a historical fiction and fantasy. And has bits of horror and thriller thrown in and at times it is downright funny. It stands alone but is also the second in a series. Please read this book and write a review so I might learn that I not the only one to feel like this about Stormbringers.

⭐ Entertaining and that is, is like a medieval cowboy cheap movie. Easy to read and the books are too short making you but the sequels,

⭐ It took me a while to get into this book and the slowness of the medieval world. I have read many other books of Philippa Gregory of the English Tudor period and have enjoyed all of them. This one was of a different country and eventually I got into it and enjoyed it very much. I am interested in Italian history and would be interested to read more of that time. The juxtaposition of an Arabic maidservant with the Italian girl and her way of thinking led to some differences in acceptable social behaviour.

⭐ I am a Philippa Gregory fan and have read all her books bur somehow missed the 1st book of Stormbringers, but just finished reading Order of Darkness, and have ordered the 3rd book to learn how the series end and what happens to the characters. The book was different and until half read didn’t peaked my interest.

⭐ Absolutely loved this! It was written for teenagers but since I wanted to read something of Gregory’s until her new book comes out in a few months, I was very pleased with this “Order of Darkness” trilogy. Gregory never fails to entertain and inform; she is a genius and a very talented writer. See my review of “Fool’s Gold”, which is part of this trilogy. I have read all of Philippa Gregory’s books and love every one of them! I would recommend anyone who loves mysteries, history and some romance to read all of Gregory’s books and to preorder her new book which will be out in a few months.

⭐ A very interesting and informative book Philippa Gregory,in her usual style leaves you not wanting to put the book down till you have reached the end of it… This is the second book in the series can not wait to read book 3.. If the reader of this has not read the first one in this series you have missed a good read, and it will make it easer to follow Stormbringers.. Regards Book Lover

⭐ I read this book within 2 days. A testament to Philippa’s ability to hook you in until you become a spectator in the story- living vicariously through the lives of her characters.

Keywords

Free Download Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) in Epub format
Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) Epub Free Download
Download Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) 2013 Epub Free
Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) 2013 Epub Free Download
Download Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2) Epub
Free Download Ebook Stormbringers (Order of Darkness Book 2)