Destiny of Fire — Zoe Oldenbourg

As powerful as "The World is Not Enough, " as absorbing as" The Cornerstone, " this final installment of Zoe's Oldenbourg's brilliant historical trilogy set in medieval France recounts the misfortunes endured by the noble Seigneur of Montgeil in the unbelievably fierce "Forth Crusade" at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Vassals to the Count of Toulouse and devout adherents of the Albigensian heresy, Montgeil and his family suffer the horrors of a bloody, pitiless religious war only to find themselves confronting an even crueler destiny: excommunication from the Church and condemnation to death by fire.