The Unicorn Hunt, Dorothy Dunnett
The Unicorn Hunt, Dorothy Dunnett
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The Unicorn Hunt

Author: Dorothy Dunnett

Narrator: John Banks

Unabridged: 29 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/13/2023

Synopsis

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents the House of Niccolò series. The time is the fifteenth century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire.

Scotland, 1468: a nation at the edge of Europe, a civilization on the threshold of the Modern Age. Merchants, musicians, politicians, and pageantry fill the court of King James III. In its midst, Nicholas seeks to avenge his bride's claim that she carries the bastard of his archenemy, Simon St. Pol. When she flees before Nicholas can determine whether or not the rumored child is his own—or exists at all—Nicholas gives chase. So begins the deadly game of cat and mouse that will lead him from the infested cisterns of Cairo to the misted canals of Venice at carnival. Breathlessly paced, sparkling with wit. The Unicorn Hunt confirms Dorothy Dunnett as the genre's finest practitioner.

About Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett was born in 1923 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Her time at Gillespie's High School for Girls overlapped with that of the novelist Muriel Spark. From 1940-1955, she worked for the Civil Service as a press officer. In 1946, she married Alastair Dunnett, later editor of The Scotsman.

Dunnett started writing in the late 1950s. Her first novel, The Game of Kings, was published in the United States in 1961, and in the United Kingdom the year after. She published twenty-two books in total, including the six-part Lymond Chronicles and the eight-part Niccolo Series, and coauthored another volume with her husband. Also an accomplished professional portrait painter, Dunnett exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions and had portraits commissioned by a number of prominent public figures in Scotland.

She also led a busy life in public service, as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial, and director of the Edinburgh Book Festival. She served on numerous cultural committees, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 1992 she was awarded the Office of the British Empire for services to literature. She died on November 9, 2001, at the age of seventy-eight.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Melindam on October 21, 2024

A hard one to rate, but I decided that I won't let my strong personal disgust against one of the characters (welcome to the menacing sandbox of the historical kindergarten, children! If you are a girl liking a boy, please make sure you kick them in the groin really hard and throw sand into their mou......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer (JC-S) on November 26, 2021

In this book, set between October 1468 and February 1471, our hero Sir Nicholas De Fleury appears to have designs on the kingdom of Scotland under the reign of King James III. Friends, foes and business rivals alike have different plans for Nicholas. As does his wife Gelis: the one enemy he cannot f......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on May 11, 2025

5/10/25 update : I'm knocking another star. Everything I said originally is still true, but the meandering non-accomplishment of much of importance means this was a very long slog for very little result. --- (original 2015 review:) Oh....how I hate to give a Dunnett book 4 stars instead of 5. And it ma......more

Goodreads review by jrendocrine at least reading is good on October 22, 2024

This is my 3rd time reading this series in the last 15 years. the Unicorn Hunt has always been my least favorite. This time I mostly listened to the (wonderful) audible version (then comes the Dunnett tipping point of extended ecstasy where you can't do anything else, and I just finished the last 20......more

Goodreads review by Yati on October 22, 2009

Certain things I predicted when I started the book (or rather when I finished the last one) were correct, much to my astonishment. Nicholas still makes me exclaim in startled disbelief when I'm reading the book -- I don't think he'll ever stop surprising me.......more

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