A heady experience, for an only child accustomed to single-thread happiness, and not to the moment of creation that occurs when the warp is interlocked with the weft. When the singer is matched with the sounding-board; the dream with the poet. When the sun and the fountain first meet one another.Side by side they were evading, she and Francis Crawford, a pack of men who intended to kill them. About time we got to the romance part of this 'historical romance' series. Adventures and battles and jo [...]

Is it logical to be this sad about the “happy ending” of a book? The very phrase sounds like a contradiction in itself, as happy endings are supposed to make you happy, and the sensitive ones might shed some tears too, but essentially ‘tis supposed to make you feel satisfied, elated about the conclusion. And yet . . . Scratching your heads already? There’s a reason for this, not related to the ending proper. Rather, it’s about the voyage towards that ending, the harrowing path leading [...]

10 starsI shall harness thee a chariotof lapis-lazuli and goldCome into our dwelling, in theperfume of the cedars.This fragment of poetry is laced through the chapters of this book, and for me, it evokes the emotions of longing and and finally, fulfillment to be found in the Lymond Chronicles.Masterfully woven, filled with tension, hope, despair, grief, violence and love; Checkmate brings the saga of Francis Crawford of Culter, Comte de Sevigny to a close. Alas, any story following this is bound [...]

WOW! I would give this 6 stars if I could! There are no words to adequately give praise to this final book in the Lymond Chronicles.Unwillingly brought to France by well-meaning friends, Lymond reluctantly accepts a commission in the armies of King Henri II, while struggling with an array of challenges and complications in his personal life. As passions flare and personalities clash, the mysteries of Lymond’s character and origins become clear, forcing him to deal with his own tarnished past a [...]

A wonderfully satisfying conclusion to an extremely convoluted and well plotted historical series The main character Francis Lymond was a tortured soul, an enigma but who lived by his own code of honour. An unforgettable hero more than capably matched by his young wife Philippa. In fact the whole cast of characters whether heroes or villains were so well drawn.One had to wonder after following Francis Lymond through all of his trials and political intrigue and across so many continents if he wou [...]

There is, I think, a line in one of Jane Austen's pieces of juvenilia which reads something like:It was too pathetic for the feelings of Sophia and myself—we fainted alternately upon a sofa.Yeah, that about sums it up.

It's been exactly a week since I finished this book and I still don't know what to say about it besides something incoherent while flapping my hands about and sobbing. THESE BOOKS, MY GOD. So instead I'll just plot summarize a bit: This book finds Lymond back in France after the events of book five. He wants to get back to Russia but instead agrees to stay in France for a year to help their campaign against the newly united Spanish and English. Thankfully, we're reunited with almost everyone I l [...]

Checkmate is a rare book, a unique book. It's the only romance novel (come on, don't deny it. You know it's at heart a romance novel!) that has thousands of pages of character development in the form of the previous 5 books in the series. So the feels when everything comes together in CheckmateThe feels

Oh, I LOVE this series! And also hate it so much. I never ever finish one of these books without coming away completely wrung out and gasping for air In the best possible way. So of course they must be read over and over again. Each time I find new things; or find I've forgotten things, so that events continue to strike me like a smack in the head In the best possible way. :)

Do not listen to anyone who tells you that this book is the best of the six. It isn't. (I think we've all agreed that Pawn was.) However, to devotees of the books it will seem like the best, because it's the one with the (relatively) Happy Ending. If you read any of the reviews online they all say the same thing: Dunnett seems to have lost some of her edge. This book pulls out all the stops and employs every last romance novel cliche you can think of. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter bec [...]

This was a great finish to the series. Dunnett wields her pen like a knife, and if she waxes flowery on occasion, one can forgive her for the imagery she builds is so vivid you can't help but be sucked in. She's not afraid to use that knife to murder prominent characters, some of whom have been with us for quite some timebut always with surgical intent and driven by plot necessity. These are not killings a la George RR Martin, who especially recently has sometimes felt like he killed characters [...]

Dense, intense and utterly satisfying. I was near tears toward the end of this book and it's rare a book or series gets my heart pounding and my mind frantic with anxiety. I both did and didn't want the journey to end and it's been nearly a day since I've been able to even contemplate giving a flavour of how I felt finishing this series.Lymond is a mastermind Renaissance Man in this bloodied world and readers finally get to understand the true man behind the enigma. Love the many complicated rel [...]

Early in this book, Lymond is cornered in the streets of Lyon by various people intent on murdering him. With his companion Philippa Somerville he embarks on a high-speed chase through the streets and over the rooftops, involving extreme physical danger, courage, agility and a healthy measure of quick-witted verbal assaults on his attackers.It's a throwback to a similar episode in "Queens' Play", but it's also a fair metaphor for the whole Lymond series. As a reader, I spent much of my time feel [...]

This is the last and best book in this truly brilliant series. Some other reviewers have complained about the melodramatic nature of this episode, but in truth I think the whole series is high melodrama, (in the first chapter of the first book, for goodness sake, there was a drunk pig and Lymond sets fire to his mother). This is just building to a climax before the end. The highs are higher and the lows are lower, it is all as we should expect, and it is glorious.Quick recap: In the Previous boo [...]

The final book in the Lymond Chronicles and a spectacular finish! Checkmate opens as Lymond and his band of mercenaries leave England behind and travel to France to serve the French King in his battles with King Phillip. As Lymond is still set upon returning to Russia King Henri offers Lymond the annulment from Philippa that he desperately wants if he serves France for one year - if he doesn't Henri will do all in his power to block the annulment forever. Philippa comes to France to serve as lad [...]

I finished this book a few days ago, and although my brain has settled down a bit, my stomach still has not fully recovered. I read Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle, and Checkmate back to back, and by the time I got to Checkmate, I was reading all hours of the day and night, completely ignoring work, because I simply had to know how this amazing series would resolve. However I have to admit that reading the last 3 books of the series back to back might have been a mistake -- the roller co [...]

Even though I loved the new places Dorothy Dunnett took me to, and appreciate the level of historical detail she included, my interest in Lymond kind of flagged when the books started to focus on the rivalry between Lymond and his nemesis, Gabriel. And sometimes Lymond got so damn self-sacrificing and pretentious I wanted to smack him in the head. BUT in this book I absolutely fell in love with Philippa Somerville and, through her, I fell in love with the series again. I may have skimmed books 3 [...]

The Lymond Chronicles are the most intricately plotted novels I have read by any author, ever. Your IQ will go up 10 points if you can read them and keep straight everything that is going on!Also, Dunnett's characters are very convincing and so three-dimensional. Lymond is as enigmatic and infuriating as a hero can come. The villains aren't just cardboard bad guys, they are really human and they are even scarier because of that.I really don't remember the individual books well enough to say that [...]

When I finished reading "Checkmate" I had a hard time letting go of these complicated, intense and very real characters.Lymond did all that he could to get back to Russia and somehow pick up the pieces of his shattered dream and live his life there. With the interference of those who wanted to salvage what was left of his soul and humanity, they did all that was possible to keep him from Russia. France providing the brass ring, Lymond would give a year's service to the King and the Cardinal woul [...]

The Lymond Chronicles books are quite possibly my all-time favorite books, or at least as an adult. There are six thoroughly-researched novels in the series, and each outdoes its predecessor in weaving historic details, compelling characters, and gripping plot twists. The story follow Francis Crawford of Lymond, a minor Scottish nobleman, through adventures that take him from his native land to England, France, Malta, Greece, North Africa, Russia, and finally back home to Scotland. Along the way [...]

The final book of the Lymond Chronicles, by far DD's greatest book, and the best book I have ever read.This is Lymond and Phillipa's love story. It is also Lymond's redemption and the resolution of the question of his parentage and issues with his mother. He is a man with more burdens than a single human should be asked to carry, and his friends are all worried about his physical health and mental strength. All that, a war in France, the marriage of a spoiled Scottish princess, and Nostradamus.P [...]

Number : 14Read 8/30/06-2/11/07, 2/16-2/20/05Checkmate finishes the amazing tale of Francis Crawfordof Lymond in breath-taking, stunning and wonderous fashion.The book is set in France and almost anything else I couldpossibly say plot-wise would be a spoiler. Instead, I'll just rave and say that in a series of books where each one rated a 10, this one was perhaps the best. Lymond is the most fascinating of characters, surrounded by other intricately drawn characters. I can't recommend this serie [...]

informs me that I last read Checkmate almost fifteen years ago (I could have sworn it was later than that, but who knows) which probably explains why I had forgotten everything about it except Philippa's disastrous visit to the house on the Rue de Cerisaye and the qualified (because of all the suffering and death that went before it!) happy ending. So I was in a strange position of knowing the Big Events, but having forgotten all the smaller details that embroidered those big events, and led up [...]

THIS BOOK IS GOING DOWN.Lymond upon reuniting with Jerott: "Your ass got fat."Me:***I've been sitting on my thoughts about this book for a while. It keeps bugging me. Like every time I think of this series I'm like -- "ASGLKAJGLKAJGASGAJGLK BEST SERIES EVER!!!!!!!!!" but then I think of the ending and my face takes on this involuntary grimace and I feel horribly let down by it, as if by a extraordinarily precocious child prodigy who goes to college swearing to solve cancer and comes back a obese [...]

I am completely exhausted after reading all six books of the Lymond Chronicles. I have laughed out loud, I have cried, I have been angry and upset. I have loved Francis and hated him, been sick at heart for him. And for Phillippa. You want to mend the relationships with his brother and mother - and sister. You want to offer what he does not want. In this volume, Lymond is at the height of his military career in France, and at the point of despair of salvaging his mysterious heritage and his comp [...]

This book lived up to all of the promise of the Lymond chronicles. This book, I think, managed to combine compelling plots, suspense and tension with considerable growth of already very complex characters, beautiful prose and a hopeful ending. The finer and deeper points are brought out of many of the characters - Lymond and Philippa, but also Marthe, Jerott, Sybilla and even poor Austin - without falling into the easy trap of assigning each to "good" or "evil". This is the book of the series th [...]

Five stars.Five stars.Five stars.I sat on this book for a couple of years and Sherwood Smith was agog, since she finished book 5 and grabbed book six in the next breath because she had to know what happened next, how it all would end.That's the part that stopped me.It was going to end. And I needed time to savor, to think, to recover? Before diving back in. That is not typical for me, but it's what I did. And then because details of series like this one flit out of my mind, I couldn't remember e [...]

My favorite in the series, despite the fact that Lymond's relationship with Philippa seems to me almost absurd -- like the author just wanted to torture her protagonists a little more. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the aspect of the book that draws on the analogy to The Book of Abraham (referenced in Part 1 -- what does it mean to have a wife, to deny your wife -- like Abraham, Lymond only really comes to accept his wife once he is past lusting for her), the parallel to the journey of Odysseus (an obv [...]

A superb conclusion to the Lymond Chronicles, which brings together all the main characters and plot threads into one brilliant, emotionally-charged story. In the last of the six books, Dunnett allows us to see the true scale of Lymond's doubts and weaknesses, and to appreciate the price that he has paid for his irreverent, dazzling romp through 1550s Europe. As always it is beautifully written, often shot through with a glittering thread of humour, with some deliciously funny scenes lightening [...]

In the final book of The Lymond Chronicles Ms. Dunnett takes her gloves off and shows her mastery of plot and tension to tremendous and troubling effect.Having painted herself into a corner in Pawn in Frankincense, she could've easily written an entire adventure-in-fan-service that would have served as a happy if unfulfilling end to the Chronicles.Instead she feints and twists, parrying with characters and situations the reader's singular hope. The plot is quick and tense and the characters show [...]