The Privilege of the Sword

by Ellen Kushner

Paperback, 400 pages

English language

Published July 25, 2006 by Spectra.

ISBN:: 978-0-553-38268-6
OCLC Number:: 64230417

(7 reviews)

Welcome to Riverside, where the aristocratic and the ambitious battle for power and prestige in the city's labyrinth of streets and ballrooms, theatres and brothels, boudoirs and salons. Into this alluring and alarming world walks a bright young woman ready to take it on and make her fortune. A well-bred country girl, Katherine knows all the rules of conventional society. Her biggest mistake is thinking they apply.Katherine's host and uncle, Alec Campion, the capricious and decadent Mad Duke Tremontaine, is in charge here--and to him, rules are made to be broken. When he decides it would be far more amusing for his niece to learn swordplay than to follow the usual path to ballroom and husband, her world changes forever. And there's no going back. Blade in hand, it's up to Katherine to find her own way through a maze of secrets and betrayals, nobles and scoundrels--and to gain the …

4 editions

unicorndeburgh reviewed The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner (A Bantam Spectra book)

Review of 'The Privilege of the Sword' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I gobbled this book up, to the neglect of other things -- including sleep.

The narrator, Katherine, is young and naive, and you see the world through her eyes as she tries to make sense of it. She's catapulted from a quiet, country existence of the gentry into her uncle, the Duke's, eccentric and improper household. All rather improbable, I suppose, but I was too taken with her and her story to notice.