Posted by Nandakumar Chandran on October 06, 2000 at 08:58:17:

I'm a voracious reader and I'd read most L'amour novels (many times each!), before I chanced upon, "Fair blows the wind" and it quickly became my favorite! I remember that the first time I finished reading it I was so absorbed in the story that I immediately started reading all over once again - and over the years I've read it 10-15 times. It is to me THE book! And imagine my surprise when I chance upon this site on the 6th of October and it is the book of the month! Fate? I'm not really sure why the book is to me what it is? I've immensely enjoyed reading and re-reading other L'amours and certain other books too - Lord of the Rings or the Foundation Series or the Lonesome Dove - but still "Fair blows ...", is the book which really has me hooked. Maybe it is the spirit of the book - a young Irish boy of "blood royal" fleeing his pursuers and surviving in England with the aid of gypsies, being bested in a duel by an English bully and then so as not to let it happen again, begins a quest to become the greatest swordsman in the world! He does achieve it and returns home back to Ireland with chests of gold and the Peruvian "love who lies waiting" in his home. Yes, maybe it is the ideal and the adventure which caught my imagination! The spirit of certain dialogues in the book are eternally lodged in my memory, especially where Fergus McAskill in a sentimental moment talks to our hero as the son he never had - why so? Because of set of his shoulders and "the decency in your eyes" - this "decency" is something I've always tried to maintain even in some of the worst moments of my life! And the meeting with Henry of Navarre ... Those who've not read the book, I envy you!

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