Review: I do love a Quest!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2013
This story is a Grail Quest and a journey which follows Dante's route into the inferno.  The group undertaking the quest includes an epileptic girl, a friar, a poet and a knight who lost his memory after a deep head wound.  Their world is devastated by the plague, the Black Death.  Their quest is to acquire the lance of Longinus, the soldier who pierced Christ's side, and take it into the underworld, through the nine circles of hell.  There they will use the lance to gain possession of the Grail and bring it back to earth to help to heal it.  Not all of them will return!This is an intriguing concept and the writing is scattered with antique words and Latin phrases.  Much of the Latin can be understood by anyone with a smattering of church Latin - it's biblical quotations and pieces from the Mass for the Dead. Mostly it comes off, except for odd times such as when the author apparently unwittingly used a bit of Cockney rhyming slang.  The mediaeval mind was wonderfully conjured here and I very much enjoyed the read.