Book excerpt: This is the tale of one Felimid mac Fal: vagabond, roustabout, poet—and magician! For Felimid is a poet of the old Irish blood: a fully trained bard of Erin. And his is the sort of poetry that can sing shy dryads out of their trees and dragons into slumber and juggle the fixed round of the seasons as a jester juggles knives. A man who saw the bard's pretty face and the harp on his back might think him a simple minstrel. That mistake could cost him his life. But a woman who saw the bard's pretty face might have other ideas...particularly if she is Gudrun Blackhair, the most notorious pirate on the northern sea! "For lovers of magic, history, and/or swashbuckling adventure, [Bard] is an excellent novel about an earthy and genuinely likeable Irish hero."—Science Fiction Review