Ironcrown Moon, book two of Julian May's Boreal Moon series opens as the first book did, with the recollections of the now aged royal intelligencer Deveron Austrey. He takes us back in time to his own early manhood, a time when the Isle of High Blenholme is riven with conflict and the only hope for the future seems to lie in the hands of the ruthless King Conrig Wincantor. Conrig is King of Cathra, the most prosperous of High Blenholme's four states, and he has succeeded in uniting the island under what one can only describe as a dictatorship. His are not willing subjects, they agree to be members of Conrig's federation only because of political expediency and that great motivator to fealty - hunger.

(Source: HarperCollins / Voyager)