What's On at the Library

I’ve seen a lot of things at author readings. But I’ve never seen anyone proffer a weapon for signature from the author. Until now.

Author Jack Whyte, whose hugely popular historical fiction series’ are long and legendary, was more than happy to sign the crossbow brought in by a fan. The fan, ‘Lynn’, was so inspired by his descriptions of crossbow technology and development in his Camulod series that she had her own crossbow made up and learned to shoot it! She brought the bow (but no arrows!) to the North York Central Library for The eh List reading on Tuesday night.

Whyte was reading under The eh List banner from Order in Chaos the last instalment of his Templar Trilogy. The trilogy begins with the premise that the knights Templar are not history’s bogey-men, and, in Whyte’s capable hands, they become very human, and very plausible. The previous book in the Templar series, Standard of Honour, sold more than one million copies in Canada.

This all bodes pretty well for his next project, a series of biographical novels based on Scottish heroes. The first instalment, a novel based on the life of William Wallace, is based on new research by Scottish historians and speculates on who Wallace was before he was known as Braveheart. I’m not going to be the spoiler here and give away Whyte’s provocative speculation, but I will say he’s going to make a lot of English nationalists grumble and shout.

The eh List continues this week with Jack Whyte 7 pm at S. Walter Stewart branch on April 14, John Bemrose 2 pm at Richview on April 15, Guy Gavriel Kay’s world wide launch of Under Heaven 7 pm at TRL on April 15.