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In Rosemary Sutcliff’s Dawn Wind, Owain, the book’s teenage hero who has both Roman and British blood in his veins, is the sole survivor of a terrible battle with the Saxons.
Wounded and hungry, and with only a great fighting dog for company, he makes for the old Roman city of Viroconium where, among the ruins, he meets another survivor, Regina, a young and terrified orphaned girl and together they set off for the coast, planning to leave Britain for a British settlement in Gaul. On the journey Regina falls desperately ill and Owain buys her safety with his own freedom, becoming a thrall in a Saxon household. But in the years that follow he never forgets Regina, and when he regains his freedom the two meet again.
Light in the Dark Ages
Nobody likes losing a pet. But for Owain it is the very last straw. His father and his older brother were killed in the last great battle against the invading Saxons, a battle which he himself barely...
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From the minute I opened Dawn Wind I was caught up and breathing and feeling the life and sorrow of Owain until the end when one hopes he has finally found happiness . . . There have been moments in all of the books I have read by Rosemary Sutcliff where she has reduced me to tears and this is no different and the fact that I feel such sorrow at a certain happening in Dawn Wind is proof of the power of her writing. Slightly Foxed are reprinting the Roman novels and the final two, Sword Song and The Shield Ring are due this coming September and my order is already in. Apart from being such wonderful books and such wonderful editions, the original illustrations are retained. In the Eagle of the Ninth the illustrator was C Walter Hodges, one of my favourite childhood reading illustrators, and in this title it is Charles Keeping. I said in my review of Eagle of the Ninth that it was a glorious book. So is this one.
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