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Title details for The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price - Available

The Sterkarm Handshake

#1 in series

by Susan Price
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
A twenty-first-century corporation invades the domain of a warlike sixteenth-century Scottish clan in this “brilliantly imagined” time-travel adventure (Philip Pullman).
 
The miraculous invention of a Time Tube has given Great Britain’s mighty FUP corporation unprecedented power, granting it unlimited access to the rich natural resources of the past. Opening a portal into sixteenth-century Scotland, the company has sent representatives back five hundred years to deal with the Sterkarms, a lawless barbarian clan that has plundered both sides of the English-Scottish border for generations.
 
Among the first of the company’s representatives to arrive from the future, young anthropologist Andrea Mitchell finds herself strangely drawn to this primitive tribe of raiders and pillagers who, not surprisingly, view her as magical. As translator and liaison, she becomes enmeshed in the personal lives of these proud, savage folk, developing an especially strong emotional bond with Per, the handsome son of the ruthless Sterkarm chieftain, Toorkild.
 
But the Sterkarms’ welcome does not extend to the FUP corporate despoilers from the future—and soon a fragile agreement between the untamable Scots and the interloping “Elves” begins to crumble. Suddenly war looms on the horizon, and when treachery on both sides ignites a firestorm of violence, Andrea will have to choose where her loyalties truly lie: with her coldhearted employers or with the barbarous kinfolk of the man she has come to love.
 
A winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize and a finalist for the Carnegie Medal, called “enthralling” by Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials novels, Susan Price’s Sterkarm Handshake is a masterful blend of historical and science fiction critics have called “dazzling,” “exciting,” “memorable,” “thought provoking,” and “a thumping good page-turner.”
 

  • Creators

  • Series

    Sterkarm

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 26, 2016

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781504020992
      • File size: 3612 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781504020992
      • File size: 3507 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 850
    • Text Difficulty: 4-5

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 2, 2000
      Price's (The Ghost Drum) gripping time-travel adventure, a 1999 Carnegie Medal finalist, cleverly imagines a startling collision of 21st-century technology and 16th-century mores. A British corporation called FUP has built a time machine, planning to mine pre-industrialized land for gold and oil and eventually turn it into a resort. But the Sterkarms, one of the warring families inhabiting the Scottish and English border "16th side," won't cooperate; they keep robbing FUP survey teams. Tensions escalate when FUP's power-hungry boss, Windsor, kidnaps Per, the only son of a Sterkarm lord. Making matters even more complicated, Per and Andrea, an FUP employee sent back in time to live with the Sterkarms, have fallen in love. Both parties question her loyalty, and she faces the impossible task of choosing with whom to side. While Price builds the drama well, her story lags at certain points; adults should know there's some sexual banter. These caveats aside, Price does a masterly job of blending fact and fiction, straddling two time periods and rotating through several characters' points of view. Readers will be engrossed, unable to rest until they know how the author resolves the seemingly insoluble conflicts. Ages 12-up.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 20, 2003

      "This gripping time-travel adventure cleverly imagines a startling collision of 21st-century technology and 16th-century mores," said PW
      in a starred review. Ages 12-up.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:850
  • Text Difficulty:4-5

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