The epic novel from the bestselling author of Sarum, Russka, London and The Forest.

Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.

Edward Rutherfurd was born in England, in the cathedral city of Salisbury. Educated locally, and at the universities of Cambridge, and Stanford, California, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood home to writeSarum. Four years later, when the book was published, it became an instant international bestseller, remaining 23 weeks on theNew York TimesBestseller List.

Since then he has written seven more bestsellers:Russka, a novel of Russia;London;The Forest, set in England's New Forest which lies close by Sarum; two novels which cover the story of Ireland from the time just before Saint Patrick to the twentieth century;New York; andParis. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.