The Mistletoe and Sword — Anya Seton

Anya Seton, author of the bestselling Katherine and The Winthrop Woman, was at her peak when she penned those two novels in the mid-1950s. But during that same period, she also wrote a little-known shorter novel entitled The Mistletoe and Sword. Here she turned her peerless talents as a storyteller and researcher to the adventure and romance of Roman Britain circa A.D. 60.

            Quintus Tullius, the young standard bearer with the Ninth Roman Legion, has come to Britain as part of the empire's efforts to pacify the rebellious tribes there. But he is haunted by his quest for the bones of his grandfather, who died seventeen years before in “the place of the golden tree and the stony circle.”

            As the druids who haunt Stonehenge lead him through the mythic land, he falls in love with the beautiful and mysterious Regan. But this girl is the foster daughter of Boadicea, the warrior queen of the Icenians and instigator of the historic, bloody rebellion of the British tribes against Rome.

            With its suspenseful battle scenes and its mysticism and romance, The Mistletoe and Sword is an absorbing tale that makes this obscure era of history excitingly contemporary.