The Youngest Templar Series
The Youngest Templar series has been hailed as "brilliant" and ‘inspiring' by School Library Journal. And New York Times Bestselling Author Meg Cabot calls it "Adventure quest at its best!" Published in over a dozen countries around the world, The Youngest Templar is an international sensation.
Following the adventures of Tristan, an orphan with a mysterious past, who grew up in a monastery, The Youngest Templar is full of action, adventure and nail-biting suspense. When a troop of The Knights Templar visit young Tristan's abbey on a fine spring day in 1191, he is soon swept up into a conflict beyond anything he could have ever expected. Befriended by Sir Thomas Leux Tristan becomes his squire. And before long, he suspects that Sir Thomas knows something important about the his past. When the commander of the regimento, Sir Hugh takes an immediate dislike to Tristan and even King Richard appears to want him dead, he begins to suspect he is more than just an ordinary orphan.
But fate intercedes as Tristan travels to the place the Templar's call "Outremer," the Holy Land, and gets his first taste of warfare. Besieged by Saladin in the city of Acre, as the Templar fortress is about to fall, Sir Thomas orders Tristan to escape via secret passage. And with him he must take the most sacred relic in all of Christendom: The Holy Grail.
Reluctant to leave Sir Thomas behind, Tristan barely escapes Acre alive. On his way to the port city of Tyre, he is set upon by bandits only to be rescued by a young King's Archer, Robard Hode, born in Sherwood Forest near the shire of Nottingham. With Robard at his side and soon enlisting the help of Maryam, a member of the deadly Al Hashshashin (The Assassins), the three reach Tyre only to find the evil Sir Hugh has also escaped from Acre and is waiting for them. He wants the Grail for his own purposes and will stop at nothing to get it.
Narrowly escaping Sir Hugh and with the help of a small but ferociously brave dog, our heroes brave dungeons, sword fights, sieges, shipwrecks, evil knights and secret agents of the King all in an attempt to preserve the most precious relic known to mankind. Pick up your copy of the first book The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail today!
Keeper of the Grail
Book 1 of the Youngest Templar series
Read an Excerpt→
The Third Crusade. In the Holy Land that the Knights Templar call Outremer, a young squire, born an orphan, is ordered by his Knight to carry a sacred relic to safety. It is the most precious thing in all of Christendom. Men would gladly kill him to possess it. Knights from his own order are driven mad in their quest to have it for themselves. And only he is trusted with this sacred duty.
But every duty has a price. Pursued by evil Knights, Saracens, and secret agents of the King, Tristan will be tested at every turn as he fulfills his mission: return the Holy Grail to England.
Will he succeed? Or will the nefarious forces aligned against him prevent him from succeeding?
Order Your Copy
Keeper of the Grail is available in the following formats:
ISBN: 13: 978-0142414613
September 18, 2008
Digital:
Trail of Fate
Book 2 of the Youngest Templar series
Read an Excerpt→
SPOILER ALERT: This book is a sequel and should be read after Keeper of the Grail.
Washed up on a foreign shore, Tristan is lucky to be alive. As before, it seems to be a miracle—the Holy Grail the young Templar squire is safe-guarding has saved his life yet again. But now he is lost in a strange land, and he doesn’t know if his friends still survive.
Tristan’s knack for getting into trouble is alive and well though, and he quickly finds himself drawn into a conflict between a heretical band of Cathars and the oppressive King of France.
With his duty to the Grail pulling him back toward Britain, Tristan finds himself falling for the beautiful leader of the Cathars. And when he chooses to help her in her people’s hour of need, Tristan risks not only himself but his friends and the Grail itself on a quest that may prove a disaster.
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Trail of Fate is available in the following formats:
ISBN: 13: 978-0399247644
October 29, 2009
Print:
Digital:
Orphan of Destiny
Book 3 of the Youngest Templar series
Read an Excerpt→
SPOILER ALERT: This book is the third book in a series and should be read after Keeper of the Grail and Trail of Fate.
Tristan and his companions—the fiery archer Robard Hode and the assassin maid Maryam—have escaped to England. But tragedy has occurred to Tristan’s beloved abbey while they were on the Third Crusade, and Robard’s home in Sherwood Forest suffers under the rule of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Many obstacles still prevent them from delivering the Holy Grail into safe hands. Tristan must defeat the evil Sir Hugh in one final battle. And he must learn the secret of his birth, a secret Richard the Lionheart and Eleanor of Aquitaine are willing to kill to protect!
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Orphan of Destiny is available in the following formats:
ISBN: 13: 978-0399247651
October 28, 2010
Digital:
Read an excerpt from the first book in the series
Though I am called Tristan, I have no true name of my own. It was Brother Tuck who found me on St. Tristan’s Day, nearly sixteen years ago. He is a kind and gentle man, but a deaf-mute, and unable to even write down for me how I came to be here. The abbot, a much sterner sort, tells me that I was found that August night on the steps of the abbey. A few days old at best, hungry and crying, wrapped in a soiled woolen blanket.
I’m told the sound of horses could be heard riding away through the night, but since Brother Tuck was the first to find me, we know not if he saw or even glimpsed the riders. The abbot said that two of the brothers followed the tracks into the woods but soon lost the trail.
He also thinks I must be of noble blood. No peasant could afford to own such horses, and it is unlikely a poor farmer would abandon an infant that might one day grow strong enough to help him work the farm. Nor would any illiterate peasant likely be able to write the note that was neatly tucked into the folds of my blanket. On a simple scrap of rolled parchment, wrapped with red ribbon, it read, “Brothers: We bestow onto you this innocent child. His life threatens many. Remind him that he was loved, but safer away from those who would wish him harm. We will be watching over him until it is time.”
So whoever left the note must consider me safe now that I am nearly sixteen. For as near as anyone at the abbey can tell, no one has ever come here and asked about or “watched over” me in any way. Perhaps my parents, whoever they are, were unable to fulfill that promise.
The monks were always kind to me, but they were Cistercians and believed that one was never too young to work. I earned my keep there. However, I bore them no ill will, for the monks worked just as hard as I did. I lived at St. Alban’s for all of my life, and my earliest memories were not of the names and faces of the monks, but of chores. We were a poor abbey but grew enough crops and raised enough sheep and goats to get by. Our needs were few. There was wood in the surrounding forest to see us through each winter. The gardens provided us with plentiful vegetables, and the fields gave us wheat, which we turned into bread. If there was ever anything else we needed, the brothers traded for it in Dover or one of the nearby villages.
It was a quiet and calm existence, but the work was endless. The garden was my main contribution to the abbey. Brother Tuck and I tended it from planting in the spring to harvest in the fall. Working the hoe through the soil was quiet work, and gave me much time to think. The garden sat in a sunny spot behind the abbey, and once the rainy spring was over, the weather was usually fine and fair.
Our abbey was located on the travelers’ road a day’s ride northwest of Dover. There were thirty monks in service there. Built many years ago it rose up out of the surrounding forest like a small wooden castle. It was simple in its design, because Cistercians are not frivolous, believing man is here to serve God, not adorn his buildings in finery.
Still, it was a comfortable place, inviting and welcoming to the few travelers who passed our way. The main hall where the brothers gathered to dine and pray was well lighted by the windows that rose high in the peaks. The surrounding grounds were neat and well tended, for the brothers believed that keeping things orderly kept one’s mind free to focus on God.
Except for the forest around the abbey grounds, and a trip to Dover three years before, I had seen no more of the world—though that was not all I knew of it. The monks offered shelter to travelers along the road to Dover, and from them I heard things. Exciting things happening in far-off places that made me wish for a chance to leave and see them for myself. Some told tales of wonder and adventure, of magnificent battles and exotic places. Recently, most all of the talk was of the Crusade. King Richard, who some called the Lionheart, carried out his war in the Holy Land, and it wasn’t going well. King Richard had been on the throne for almost two years, and had spent most of his time away from England fighting in the Crusades. He was called the Lionheart because he was said to be a ferocious warrior, brave and gallant, and determined to drive the Saladin and his Saracens from the Holy Land.
The Saladin was the leader of the Muslim forces opposing King Richard. He was said to be as courageous and fierce a warrior as the Lionheart, consumed with ridding the Holy Land of Christians. Even those who said that God was on our side conceded that defeating the Saladin would not be easy.
For the monks, the news from the east was of particular interest. To them, the rise of the Saladin was a signal that the end of days was near. Perhaps the Savior would soon come again.
These were my thoughts, on a clear and sunny day, as I worked beside Brother Tuck in the garden. Brother Tuck was a large man, strong and sturdy, with a generous heart. Though he couldn’t speak, he made a soft humming noise while pushing his hoe through the soil, moving to some rhythm only he felt. He could not hear the riders approach, or the sound of horses’ hooves pounding across the hard ground, or the clang of chain mail and sword as the knights reined up at the abbey gate.
Knights wearing the brilliant white tunics with red crosses emblazoned across their chests. The Warrior Monks. The famous Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. Known to all as the Knights Templar.
Order Your Copy
Keeper of the Grail is available in the following formats:
ISBN: 13: 978-0142414613
September 18, 2008