The Princess, the Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight

After reading one book by author Gerald Morris, we were addicted! Now my husband (43), my son (12), and myself (37) are fighting over every book in the Squire's Tales series that we can get our hands on! We bought this book because we heard it was "good literature." We had no idea HOW good until we read it. It is clever, witty, sarcastic, adventurous, and inspirational! My husband laughed so hard he cried! It is a very entertaining retelling of the King Arthur stories and Canterbury Tales, complete with knights, castles, princesses, magic, fairies, herbs with healing powers, and quests! The characters as sassy and full of spunk, and there is a new adventure around every corner. We recommended these books to our local library, some of the librarians read one of the books, and they ended up ordering a bunch of the books from The Squire's Tales series for the library. (This book is the sixth in the series.) It is easy to recommend such a charming and entertaining book!

This is a great book! It's not as funny as THE SQUIRE'S TALE, but it's more adventure. You see, Sarah witnesses the Queen and Sir Kai's obduction, and she goes for help. Soon she finds herself accompanied by the famous Sir Gawain, his squire, Terence, and searching for the queen and kai. But Sarah's also on a quest of her own, with only a mysterious old crone to help her. This book is filled with ACTION, ADVENTURE, KNIGHTS, ENCHANTMENTS, SUSPENSE, MAGIC, OTHER-WORLDLY-BEINGS, all on a MEDIEVAL back ground! This really is a great read!

Every book Mr. Morris writes leaves me yearning for the next one. His retelling of the Arthurian legends is masterful. I'm going to read through all six of the books that make up the Squire's Tales (so far) to study how he develops in his writing. This book is my favorite of his Squire's Tales. It isn't as jocular as the others, having a darker undertone with its themes of power and revenge, but it is gripping in its suspense. He also paces his twists and turns in a "don't put this book down" sort of way. Sarah is a fully developed and complex main character and, while I won't spoil the surprising and delightful "battle cry" uttered first by Charis and then by Sarah, I completely intend to adopt it as my own. In fact, there are a number of girls and women who would gladly wear a t-shirt (the modern evolution of the banner worn into battle) that says ... "I am my own ..." Read the book and see. This age has great good fortune to see the likes of Gerald Morris retelling the tales of De Troyes and Mallory.

So far this year I have only read one book better than this one--and that was 'The Savage Damsel And The Dwarf', by the same author who wrote this, Gerald Morris. Mr Morris has a true gift for writing. All of his books are good, and I would heartily recommend reading every single one of them. However, it is in his books that star strong, willful female heroines that he really shines. Let's face it, strong women are inspiring and exciting, and unfortunately, also rather too rare in literature, or even in films and television. Girl power is great! (Personally, I think that was why the tv series 'Buffy' was always better than its spinoff 'Angel', because it had more strong, likeable female characters.) In this novel, young, brave, determined Sarah goes looking for revenge, but ends up finding herself. Her journey is as much about self-discovery as it is a quest for justice, and the outcome is upliftingly beautiful and poignant. Yes, this book tackles some serious issues, but thankfully, in the skilled hands of Gerald Morris, it is also incredibly witty, entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny! Plus, as always, there's lots of knights in shining armour, exchanging both swordplay and wordplay equally cuttingly. I only hope that this brilliant author writes more books in this series, because I've read them all now, and I'm going into serious withdrawal...

This was just a wonderful book to read. It didn't feature a lot of the same comedy that the last five by Gerald Morris have, but it was, in my opinion, the best. Young Sarah is on a mission of revenge, which soon lands her in the middle of and adventure she'd never drempt of, including fairies,kiddnappings, famous knights, and so much more...I wasn't able to put this book down. If you haven't read the first five by Gerald Morris, I would suggest doing that first because this story really seems to bring most of the characters from the last books together, and you may not understand it if you don't know the history of the characters, but if you have read the last five, then this is a must-read! This one was definitely good enough to top it all off, but I really do hope that Mr. Morris will write more books. Five stars, hands down. Just a fabulous book.