DH is the one I have to thank for first introducing me to Guy Gavriel Kay 's body of work. He was a fan of the Fionavar Tapestry and felt sure I would like them. And like them I did. So much so that you will no doubt be hearing more about them at some future Retro Friday date. But for this inaugural edition I felt myself gravitating toward Kay's slightly later work-- Tigana . Originally published in 1990, Tigana is an epic romantic fantasy and was nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award . First off, because I am an unabashed cover hound, a look at the changing cover art then and now: Kay prefaces his story with the following shiver-inducing passage from Dante's Paradiso : All that you held most dear you will put by and leave behind you; and this is the arrow the longbow of your exile first lets fly. You will come to know how bitter as salt and stone is the bread of others, how hard the ...