My books include the three books of The Trystan Trilogy, a collection of short stories and a collection of poems. Books are available from Amazon and a variety of other sellers, including Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. Click on the link for each book to check out the various vendors.
The Wolf in Winter, the first volume of The Trystan Trilogy, a retelling of the classic Arthurian story of Tristan and Isolde, was published in November 2021.
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Extracts from reviews (Average review 4.6):
- The Wolf in Winter is a masterpiece. I was gripped by this tale, and as the excitement built towards the end, I couldn’t read fast enough.
- ‘The Wolf in Winter’ grabs you hard and doesn’t let you go. […] ‘The Wolf in Winter’ takes the tragic, beloved tale of Tristan and Isolde and sets it deep in a new wild and wilful territory.
- If you like The Last Kingdom – you will love this! […] Barbara Lennox has woven together the known albeit fragmented history, the legend of Tristan and Isolde and the myths of the dying gods of the time into a beautifully written novel.
- It is the characters who make the book and it is the characters who will live long in my memory. As with all good books, I was reluctant to say goodbye to them at the end. […} With so many characters and such a big canvas, it takes a writer of real skill to manipulate a plot that never flags. […] The thing that pulls everything together is the quality of the writing. Much like the songs of the bards she describes in the novel, it’s the rhythms of Barbara Lennox’s prose which draw you in and hold you in thrall.
- This is a fabulous retelling of the Tristan and Isolde story from Arthurian legend. […] The bleak hills and lochs are the perfect setting for all the things you would expect from this epic historical narrative – conflicted loyalties, fierce battle scenes, passionate relationships. […] It reminded me of The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell.
- The Wolf in Winter is the wildly adventurous, epic Tristan and Isolde retelling I have been looking for.
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The Swan in Summer, the second volume of The Trystan Trilogy, was published in September 2022.
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Extracts from reviews (Average review 4.8)
- The Swan in Summer is brutal and beautiful all at once, often at the same time, often holding you captive with its detail and power.
- History, mythology, legend, love, loss, intrigue, war. This novel has it all.
- The story had me hooked from the first page. I was then taken on the adventure of my life around ancient Kingdoms filled with treachery, forbidden love, deceit, and bloodthirsty battles
- Barbara Lennox has written a tale of honour and treachery, war, revenge, politics, despair, strength, courage and love – all interwoven around a fascinating period of history.
- This tale is filled with a rush of adventure, first rate sword fighting, cutthroat tension, courageous women, days of medieval Scotland entwined with a complex forbidden romance.
- The landscape of Dark Age Scotland quickly inhabits your mind and your senses. [..] The battle scenes and descriptions of hand to hand combat are amongst the best you’ll ever read, yet the heart of the book is none of these things. Rather it’s a set of characters driven by love, passion and honour who find themselves embroiled in a complex set of circumstances which threaten not only their own lives but the lives of those they hold most dear.
The Serpent in Spring, the third volume in The Trystan Trilogy, was published in April 2023.
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Click here to read an extract.
Extracts from reviews (Average review 5.0)
- It’s a skilful narrative of twists and turns, of sudden movements from one character’s storyline to another, mirroring the volatile nature of events in the war-torn place and time.
- Sporting a narrative that has a death grip on the reader’s throat and characters that smash the heart into smithereens, this ending brought this reader to tears, which is a rarity. This entire trilogy belongs with a tiny grouping of my favourite ever novels. Complex, twisting, dark, deep and astoundingly affecting.
- The writing in this book is lush and oozes with emotion. Each character, no matter how slight their role, is three-dimensional. The author’s meticulous research into this period in history shines through and it makes for a complicated and intense book. It is a novel that demands the reader pays attention to every word. The reward is a story that will linger long after the final page is turned.
- If you love historical fiction; if you are captivated by the prospect of a speculative yet highly believable take on how history lays the foundations of myth; if you like conflicted loyalties that constantly thwart the path of true love; if you like heroic, death-defying sword fights; if you like a superbly-crafted story set in a beautifully-described landscape of mountain, valley and loch – then this awesome series is for you.
The Trystan Trilogy – the Omnibus edition of the three books in one (e-book only) was published in June 2023.
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Extract from a review
- I’ve just spent two weeks totally immersed in this wonderful trilogy. The Wolf in Winter, The Swan in Summer and The Serpent in Spring complete an immense body of work that is nothing short of a masterpiece. Lennox takes the legend of Trystan and Isyeult and recreates and expand on all the known sources to produce an epic tale, or song for modern readers. All, and I mean all, of her characters are fully developed and have their own arcs. Her writing is rich and steeped in legend and songs of old but with a new charm that is truly spellbinding. This isn’t the story of one man and one woman. It’s the story of many men, many women, many kingdoms, their histories, their crimes, their redemption, their loves and their losses. I would put Barbara Lennox right up there with authors such as Bernard Cornwell and Ken Follett. If you dare to invest in this trilogy, I promise that you won’t be disappointed.
The Man who Loved Landscape, a collection of 40 short stories, was published in November 2020.
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To read a sample short story:
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Extracts from reviews:
- A simply astonishing book of forty short stories. The author clearly has a deep understanding of the workings of the human heart and mind, because all the tales offer a crystal-clear window to peer into the inner workings of a person’s soul. (Julia Blake, Author of Black Ice)
- The level of storytelling is magisterial and whole sentences go by filled with imagery that takes the breath away. Simply the best book of short stories I have read in years. (Gary Hindhaugh, Author of Daisy Jacobs Saves the World)
Song of a Red Morning, a historical short story set in Dark-age Scotland, previously published on Amazon but currently only available to Subscribers as an e-book.
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Extracts from reviews:
- A beautifully atmospheric tale that draws you in. Grounded in history but with a tantalising aura of mythology, this short story will appeal to fantasy and historical readers alike.
- It’s one thing for a writer to conjure up the atmosphere and lifestyle of an ancient world but this short story achieves something much rarer – offering us an insight into the psychology of Iron Age man.
- Thoroughly absorbing and beautifully written. A trip back in time.
The Ghost in the Machine, a collection of poetry, was published in March 2021.
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To read a sample poem:
Read a poem
Extracts from reviews:
- The poet has a beautiful turn of phrase, using alliterative language that reminds me of Seamus Heaney […] This is an excellent book, nuanced, accessible, human. It’s full of powerful ideas and exquisite language. (Steve Griffin, Author of The Things We Thought Were Beautiful)
- Barbara Lennox observes the natural world with loving and critical detail and analyses what she observes through the lens of a poet and a philosopher. She speaks of the profound and shows us illuminating flashes of the ghost in the machine, the spirit in all living things, the delicate balance of life and death, endurance and extinction, pure joy and bittersweet loss. . . . This is a book not to be missed by those who love poetry, and a book to launch a love of poetry for those who may have shied away before. (Sherry L Ross, Author of The Seeds of the Pomegranate)
- Lyrical, eloquent, precise. It’s rare for a poetry collection to span all three but this one does, capturing the world and the landscape of the human heart both movingly and accurately.
Work in Progress
My next novel, provisionally entitled The Eagle in the North, is in the early planning stages. Like The Trystan Trilogy, it will be a historical novel set in Scotland, and will take place during the Roman campaign in Scotland in the late first century.
