Ysabel
core novel 2007 The Fionavar Tapestry / Ysabel
Record
| First published | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.63 (11,345 ratings, collected 2026-09-14) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780451461902 |
Synopsis
Ysabel, published by Guy Gavriel Kay in 2007, follows fifteen-year-old Ned Marriner as he accompanies his photographer father on a work trip to Provence, France, where he expects little more than a dull stretch of helping with equipment and sightseeing. Exploring an ancient cathedral, Ned has an unsettling encounter with mysterious, dangerous figures who seem to belong to another time entirely, and he soon discovers he possesses latent magical abilities of his own that let him perceive what is really happening around him. Together with a new friend, Ned begins to uncover an age-old supernatural rivalry, rooted deep in the region's Celtic and Roman past, that has resurfaced again and again throughout history and now threatens to play itself out once more, with Ned unexpectedly caught in the middle of it.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Fionavar Tapestry / Ysabel
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Awards (verified)
- World Fantasy Award (Best Novel), 2008: won
Notes
- Kay's first urban fantasy and his first book set outside a Europe-styled secondary-world milieu since The Fionavar Tapestry (1984-1986). Two Fionavar characters (Dave Martyniuk, Kimberly Ford) recur, but Ysabel is a standalone story in a wholly different setting (contemporary Provence, France) with its own myth/history, not a continuation of that trilogy's plot -- the basis for excluding it from The Fionavar Tapestry and registering it here as its own single-work universe instead.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within The Fionavar Tapestry / Ysabel (standalone work): position 4 of 4: previous The Darkest Road (1986)
Sources
← The Fionavar Tapestry / Ysabel dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.