The Shepherd Kings

Epona #4

by Judith Tarr

The Kingdom of Lower Egypt has been occupied for a hundred years by the Shepherd Kings, the Hyksos, conquerors from the East who came with horses and dreadful war chariots to crush the foot soldiers of Pharoah. All of Lower Egypt is occupied by foreign lords, including the ancient household of The Sun Ascendant, where a young woman named Iry was once the lady of the holding and is now a slave.

But there is a change in the wind-the holding has passed to the son of a woman of a Far-Eastern tribe, a Priestess of Horse Goddess, and with him comes the living incarnation of the Goddess, the White Mare. The Mare has driven her people to Egypt in the wake of the foreign kings and, to the horror of the invaders, chooses Iry to be her Servant and Chief Priestess.

And now the Pharoah Ahmose, who still rules the Upper Kingdom, will move to take back the Lower Kingdom by making a two-fold with the seafaring empire of Crete, and with Horse Goddess herself.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Egypt, Historical, Historical Fantasy, Fiction, Romance

512 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 1999

About the author

AKA Caitlin Brennan, Kathleen Bryan.

Judith Tarr (born 1955) is an American author, best known for her fantasy books. She received her B.A. in Latin and English from Mount Holyoke College in 1976, and has an M.A. in Classics from Cambridge University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale University. She taught Latin and writing at Wesleyan University from 1988-1992, and taught at the Clarion science-fiction-writing workshops in 1996 and 1999.

She raises and trains Lipizzan horses at Dancing Horse Farm, her home in Vail, Arizona. The romantic fantasies that she writes under the name Caitlin Brennan feature dancing horses modeled on those that she raises.

Reviews

[Darien · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great fictional story of the period where Egypt first developed chariot warfare, based on historical analysis from the 1990's that point to Canaanites as the Hyksos (Foreign Kings) who ruled Egypt for 100 years, and show evidence of Cretan influence near the same time. The story is long and complex enough to follow four major characters, but I felt each got their own complete storyline as well as story segments that segued naturally from each to the other. I loved learning new things about the possible ways that Crete celebrated their Goddess, as well as the conflicts between the Upper and Lower kingdoms of Egypt and among their neighbors. The spiritual elements I thought were very well done, and I would recommend this for anyone who is intrigued by a world where the Gods walk among us, and speak to us in dreams and premonitions. As the 4th in Judith Tarr's "Epona" series we continue to see the conflicts between the matriarchal practices and functions of goddess worship and how that might have influenced the many cultures who embraced it, and eventually subsumed it.

[Antonio Santana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a historical novel, I did not know it was the 4th book in a series of the White Mare. The history is not exact but close, it took me a few years to read for the obvious, However, I did learn about the Hyksos. I did research when I could.

[Carole]

In part fascinating but the similarity of names was confusing. The book was entirely too long

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So little is known about the Egypt of the Hyksos conquest that authors can arrange their plots pretty much as they choose, around a few known historical persons. Here Tarr has connected with Egypt's adoption of the horse and war chariot, which had been used by their foreign conquerors, to in turn drive the conquerors out of Egypt. Tarr, whose love of horses usually finds its way in some important way into her novels, gives us Iry, the Mare's servant chosen by the Horse Goddess. Iry is an Egyptian, a slave, singled out by the Mare revered by the foreigners. The choice creates a political crisis just as Upper Egypt is gearing up to reconquer the Delta.

Tarr rarely strays far from the personal and human, which makes her stories so vivid and alive. Iry, her cousin, their Cretan allies, and several members of a conquering family, meld in spite of the conflicts of loyalty caused by the transfer of the Mare's favor to Egypt.

My favorite novel read of 2011

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was awesome. I really love Judith Tarr but I never actually seek out her books; I usually just find them at flea markets or tucked into random corners of libraries. This one I scored for 50 cents at Goodwill. It was long enough to keep me going all week (me!), and so engaging that I never wanted to put it down. A good retelling of a part of ancient Egyptian history that I hadn't thought much about before.

[Kristyn Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! The way she used the characters helped understand the division within the kingdom. All the charcters were strong and introduced appropriately. The battles were intense and described beautifully. I wanted more at the end, but it still concludedon a high note. I can't wait to read more and maybe look into reading The Mares Daughter.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good 'historical fiction' I think. A bit to obsessed with the mores of the time (sex at every other moment? come on....)

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic. The Mare reunites Egypt, sends the Hyksos packing