The First Crusade to the Holy Land, transformed by the imagination and religious fervor of an Italian gentleman of the late sixteenth century. A mission of war armed protagonists, watched over by angelical and diabolical forces, interrupted by adventures, enchantments, love stories, unexpected transgressions. In Tasso’s world, dedication to a cause is always something extreme and fatal; love is characterized by unhappiness and defeat (Erminia, Tancredi, Clorinda) and the war is ferociousness without either pity or a solution.

An epic saga of love and war, Shadow of the Swords tells the story of the Crusades—from the Muslim perspective. Saladin, a Muslim sultan, finds himself pitted against King Richard the Lionheart as Islam and Christianity clash against each other, launching a conflict that still echoes today. In the midst of a brutal and unforgiving war, Saladin finds forbidden love in the arms of Miriam, a beautiful Jewish girl with a tragic past. But when King Richard captures Miriam, the two most powerful men on Earth must face each other in a personal battle that will determine the future of the woman they both love—and of all civilization. Richly imagined, deftly plotted, and highly entertaining, Shadow of the Swords is a remarkable story that will stay with readers long after the final page has been turned.

A rousing conclusion to an unforgettable saga—the story of a Swedish warrior’s transformative journey and the enduring love that founded a nation. One of the fiercest and most feared warriors of the Knights Templar, Arn de Gotha can finally return home to his beloved Sweden, now that Jerusalem has been lost to Saladin. But during his twenty years of exile, Arn’s homeland has been torn apart by warring clans—and the brave nobleman soldier is determined to reunite it and establish lasting peace. Waiting for him is his beloved Cecilia, emerging from a convent to join him after their unfathomably long separation, against the stern demands of her clan. Their reunion could incite a war unless they can convince the clan that love ranks higher than politics, and that it can sustain a new quest: to create a new people, a new society, with Arn at its helm.

Born in 1150 to an aristocratic Swedish family, handsome Arn Magnusson is educated at a Cistercian monastery. As well as training to be a monk, he is to be a warrior, and becomes a master archer and swordsman under the tutelage of the giant Brother Guilbert, a former knight. But Arn is innocent in the ways of the world, and when two beautiful sisters cross his path, despite falling desperately in love with one of them, Cecilia, he is seduced by the other. Such a crime is punishable by both civil and clerical authorities, and, while Cecilia is banished to spend twenty years as a nun, Arn is sentenced to serve the same period as a Knight Templar in the Holy Land. As an occupation officer in Palestine, he discovers that the infidel Saracens don't appear to be brutish and uncivilised as they are portrayed in Christian propaganda. On the contrary, in love and war he learns from the example of his noble adversary Saladin that there's another side to the teachings of the Cistercians¿