Tigana

I'll be honest I didn't think I was going to like this book much when I first started reading it. The descriptions of Devin and his singing group left me uninspired. I felt like I was looking at yet another fantasy world of magic and towers and bards and despots without much new.

Then the hunting lodge. And it all turned.

The themes of identity and country and suppression played on many things I've studied or thought about and I loved the depth in which Kay treated them within his otherwise familiar fantasy world. Yes, his prose can tend towards the flowery, but I have no issue with that. To my ear it's good flowery prose. If your tastes don't run that way, it may bug you, but it's not overdone in my opinion.

And the characters are bright and believable and rich. Score one for the Sword side of genre fiction.