Guy Gavriel Kay is more than just a fantasy author to me. He's the reason that I fell in love with reading in the first place. While there have been hits and misses among Kay's pantheon of books for me, A Brightness Long Ago
speaks to the beauty of the Sarantine Mosaic and the Lions of Al-Rassan. It's reminiscent of the best not just Kay's books, but of all books, sending my heart soaring even as the poetic cadence of the prose makes me want to weep.

There is an ugliness to the world that Kay writes and his characters inhabit, but there's a beauty to it too. In fact, the ugliness can't be extricated from the beauty and it might be that which makes it so reminiscent of our own world. A Brightness Long Ago feels like it could be a history, and its fantasy elements do nothing to take away from that. Instead the fantastical parts of the story make the world feel bolder and more vibrant, unabashedly alive.

I can't recommend A Brightness Long Ago highly enough. It's a book I finished an ARC of and immediately ordered a copy of it for myself.

4 stars: Guy Gavriel Kay wrote my favourite book series of all time, the Fionavar Tapestry so I am immediately drawn to anything he writes. A Brightness Long Ago was an amazing story although I fully admit that I struggled to get into it which is why my review is so late. I put it down a few times, read something else and then picked it back up.

Now that I have finished the book and am trying to put down in words how I felt about the story, there are a few elements that are problematic for me so are the likely culprits for why it was a slow read for me. I will start with what I loved about the book - the characters, both the ones that are important to the story and those that are incidental. All are fascinating. Secondly, the location - while this book is a fantasy, the location feels like Renaissance Italy so if you love that period in history, you will most likely enjoy this story.

What I didn't love about the book - I personally struggle with stories that involve children getting hurt. No spoilers but there is a character in the book called The Beast who takes particular pleasure in hurting others, children included. It was difficult for me to read.

Bottom line: you can never go wrong with a Guy Gavriel Kay book...ever.

Guy Kay is quite possibly my favourite author, so there is no way to write a review that isn't just me gushing about how wonderful his books are. A Brightness Long Ago is a solid installment in a historical fantasy series that gives the reader an intimate look into epic historic events. In a lot of ways, this book felt like coming back to people and places I already knew, and I loved the little call backs to previous novels, but it was wholly original. Kay has a way of writing characters that feels so genuine, and he's able to insert those individuals seamlessly into a wider political narrative. And let's not forget that he writes beautifully - that's just a bonus on top of the amazing character development, rich setting, and engaging plot.

Our lives are a series of crossroads, every path we take molding our destinies, each encounter inclining our course as we, in turn, influence the ways others may travel. Guy Gavriel Kay's latest novel follows the winding journeys of three young people as they are caught up in events with deep repercussions: Guidanio Cerra, a tailor's son who dreams of becoming a bookseller but finds himself entangled in the violent politics of rival city-states; Adria Ripoli, a nobleman's daughter who rejects tradition by joining in her mercenary uncle's schemes; and Jelena, a pagan healer who leaves her family to live by her own rules.

This novel is a moving, introspective exploration of the human soul. As always, Kay's subtle writing weaves its magical spell, turning even the most horrible death into something poetic. He never skims over actions, emotions or thoughts, but examines them closely, giving them their due weight and import. He creates multifaceted characters who demonstrate very human and recognisable paradoxes. His masterful use of multiple points of view turns certain complex scenes — a horse race, for instance — into a breathtaking, immersive experience. My expectations from "A Brightness Long Ago" were high, and I was not disappointed.

This is fantasy that reads like historical fiction. The world is so real that I kept forgetting that it wasn’t our world and the events feel so familiar and possible that it was hard to distinguish fantasy from history. It is such an immersive setting that I couldn’t help becoming caught up in it and completely invested in what happened.

I did feel there was a little touch of Game of Thrones style peril for the characters as it became apparent that anyone could die at any time and being a “main” character was not protection from death. There was one death in particular that absolutely shocked me and brought home the true danger of this world. Up until that point I was sure that this character was going to have an important life full of adventure and to watch this person snuffed out so quickly and futilely was an unhappy surprise.

As the story is told by Danio in old age it was clear that he would survive the tumultuous events he was caught up in and so I never worried about him. Everyone else was fair game though and this was a brutal and dangerous world. Not everyone gets what they deserve and not everyone dies a hero. There were several character arcs that I loved to watch as they developed in complex and unexpected ways. It was very satisfying to hear through the aged Danio what became of all the survivors, although he glossed over his own life. To the end he remained the humble archivist of this little bit of history and didn’t include himself among the ranks of the illustrious people who transformed history so greatly. Even though he influenced those important people significantly he considered himself more of a witness to these grand events. After reading this chronicle of his life there is no doubt that he was much more noteworthy than he gives himself credit for. He was a regular man swept up in extraordinary events.

This book has made me rediscover my love for Guy Gavriel Kay and now I want to re-read all of his earlier work. I would highly recommend this to any fans of intricate, immersive world building, historical fiction (even though it is a made up world) or anyone just wanting to lose themselves in a great story.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Viking for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

My original review appears not to have been sent.

I will be handselling this book as it is brilliantly written and so engrossing that to not introduce it to people who have not read this author would be a travesty.

I must admit this is my first GGK novel, but meanwhile I have a lot on my TBR list. This novel did not disappoint. It is different than anything I have read. The writing is masterfully woven with intricate story telling and character development.
I enjoyed the flow of different story telling from different perspectives and in a non linear fashion
My experience with this novel will definitely bump my other GKK novels on my TBR list sooner
Appreciate the advance copy and opportunity to read this

Fans of character-driven fiction will love Guy Gavriel Kay's latest offering. In this beautifully-written work of historical fantasy, an old man reflects on the extraordinary people he knew years ago, including a beautiful noble-born assassin, a healer who always seems to be in the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time, and two mercenary captains shaped by their life-long rivalry.

Guy Gavriel Kay is a master story teller. In this tale, told in mutiple points of view but primarily in memory by the main character, Kay weaves a special kind of magic by simply folding & unfolding the layers of events during a small period of time in our main character Guidanio’s life. Guidanio, not a noble born is the son of a tailor. His intelligence does not go unnoticed and he secures a spot in a prestigious school. He makes contacts with people well above his station, is as sharp as the best of them if not sharper. One fateful night he briefly meets a young woman during a shocking set of events that open our story. This young lady and his decision to help her shapes his life. It is the starting point for what becomes an amazingly layered story of interchanges back and forth between several compelling characters that include two powerful mercenary chieftains, a solitary healer, and a spirited young woman fighting to live her dreams before she must bow to the female norms of society. The unravelling of these layers of conversations , choices made and relationships is exquisite in its telling. This is not an epic fantasy nor a battle story. The pace can be slow at times but the beauty is in the details here. The intricacy of detail and how everything comes together masterfully is what I appreciated the most.

I was not fond of this book and while his works are masterpieces are just that this book is just not for me.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s website is called “Bright Weavings,” and this new novel is brightly woven. The narrative is, indeed, more weblike than linear, tracing the tight but seemingly random relationships between characters in one brief moment in time. For me, the title represents the brief light of a life flaring out in the dark reaches of history; Kay brings them to life and their lives shine and interact like a kaleidoscope.

The novel opens with an incredibly tense and suspenseful assassination, and two characters meet whose lives will intersect briefly. Their lives intersect with others, and with others, and so the web is woven. It is a novel built of moments – like history – each one shining out, radiantly important to the individual at its center, perhaps meaningless beyond that context, or having repercussions that go unsuspected at the time.

In our universe, Guidanio Cerra, the narrator whose memory captures most of the threads of this web and spans a time-line that exceeds the direct actions of the novel, would have read Boethius in the school in Avegna where he was fortunate enough to study and which led his path to cross with larger figures of his time. He thinks about Fortune’s Wheel, and if we have read Boethius, we think of his central lesson which is to withstand the blows of fate and set an even keel through life. Guidanio Cerra does that, and perhaps this is why he is the one to encounter and witness the brief, more fortune-driven lives of others, and to reflect on them and his own place in them.

We meet many characters: Guidanio Cerra, the son of a bookseller from Seressa (a Venice analogue), Adria Ripoli, the young woman at the center of the two most striking set-pieces in the novel (the assassination and the most exhilarating horse-race), the powerful rival mercenaries, Folco Cino and Teobaldo Monticola, and the intriguing Jelena, the healer. And others. We get brief insights into the lives of “bit” characters as well, each one vividly drawn even if just for a moment.

Kay is known as a fantasy writer, but this is something of a misnomer; Kay himself resists genre identification. A Brightness Long Ago is perhaps the least “fantasy-like” of his novels that I’ve read, and I’ve read most of them (all but one, I think). This is set in the same world as Children of Earth and Sky, and I believe is a prequel. Someone needs to write a guide to Kay’s characters and settings, because there are connections and threads running between his works that add to the complex sense of connectedness that informs them. Perhaps the best description of Kay’s work would be “meta-history” – his novels are set in a world that does not exist, yet explore and illuminate themes and historical trends that are very much alive in our own. Kay’s work always has an underlying melancholy, a sense of tragic inevitability, perhaps just in the sense that all our lives and enterprises are brief and ultimately pointless, but we also get the sense that each of us has our own brightness to share, and what a brilliant light that can be.

I have long been a fan of Kay and have read every single book he's written numerous times. This book did not disappoint. The prose is brilliant, the character development is intricate and believable and the storylines are hauntingly beautiful, heartbreaking and uplifting. As usual the themes of memory and the randomness of fate are woven through this book and for those who have read his other books will enjoy the ways that his previous stories are touched on, part of the history behind this book.
This is the story of a chance encounter on a staircase after the murder of a powerful and brutal man that leads to a lifelong love and to the end of a feud between two brilliant, charismatic mercenary leaders.
What I love about this author's books is the way he makes ordinary people pivotal to the plot and the destiny of countries while keeping it believable. His plot lines are subtle and there are layers of themes that can take several reads of the book to recognize.
Part of this book takes place around the Palio; a horse race in Italy like no other. I particularly enjoy that part of the book, as it is something with a rich history that few people have written about.
Best of all, this book also appears to be a sort of prequel to his last book, Children of Earth and Sky in a totally unexpected way.

No matter what the era, the themes, the characters, or the plot, a Guy Gavriel Kay is always a marvel of narrative construction. Few authors can weave a tale in quite the same way he does, building a narrative that engages as effortlessly as it flows, and yet which is revealed to be a thing of complex beauty upon further reflection.

A Brightness Long Ago is a story told in offset layers, with one narrative thread overlapping another, repeatedly taking us back a step to view a portion of the scene from a different point of view before advancing further. It's a technique that could be jarring, disconcerting even, but in Kay's hands it enhances the story, building connections with the characters even as it builds our appreciation for what he's accomplished.

It's not just a story of overlapping narrative threads, of course, but one of overlapping lives, and there is where the brightness shines strongest. Guidanio Cerra is at the heart of it all, a young man who comes into some very powerful, very dangerous circles. On the surface, it seems like a matter of right place, right time, but the more we read, the more we realize it's his choices - sometimes the simplest of choices - that guide him into those circles. The first circle he steps into is that of Adria Ripoli, a young woman about to assassinate the Beast. The lead-up to that act, the act itself, the escape, and the circle that follows, bringing Jelena, the healer, into the story, is more exciting than many novels, and that's less than 60 pages of a 560-page book.

The two biggest, boldest circles are those of Folco Cino and Teobaldo Monticola, rival mercenary commanders with a history. It's a rivalry that threatens to spill over into battle, with the threat of war looming large over the whole story, and yet that's not the focus here. Kay can do battles, sieges, and conflicts very well, but here he is less interested in the action and more in the motives, the relationships, and the personalities. The crossing of their circles is alternately amusing and tense, playing out over the turning of seasons, until it does finally come to violence. A smaller circle connecting both men, drawing Guidanio deeper into intrigue, is that of Ginevra della Valle, a beautiful Mistress who alters the course of fate with a word, a wink, and a wager.

Whereas so many fantasies are all about the story, with a quest or a conflict driving the story, we don't have that thread to follow here. Instead, A Brightness Long Ago follows the threads of the characters and their relationships, becoming more about the act of choosing than the choices we make, and more about the nature of memory than the memories we keep. Those overlapping circles, narratives and characters, are what make the story here, and it's a powerful one. By the time the story reaches its climax, it's almost shocking to see the way in which fate changes everything, and how the choices we make sometimes may mean everything to our lives, but nothing to the world.

I'm a long-time fan of Guy Gavriel Kay's superb historical fantasies. I opened A Brightness Long Ago with high hopes, and was in no way disappointed. It's set in an alternate early Renaissance Italy. Kay has the ability to capture the flavor of an era in history and present it to readers in an alternate form.

His previous novel, Children of Earth and Sky, featured two young heroines as well as intriguing male leads. The main story arc in A Brightness Long Ago follows two young women (and especially one of them) as they bypass societal expectations and strive very hard to form their own destinies.

Another brilliant read from Kay, not to be missed by any fan of the best historical fantasy.