Falls Ende - Secundus: A Single Act of Mercy Ignites Resentment, and Consequences Begin to Unfold
(Book #2 in the Falls Ende Series)
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Book Overview
When the murrain sweeps through Mellester, destroying Odo Read's entire herd, his dream of building a life at Falls Ende is shattered overnight. With Sir Gweir and all of Mellester's knights away fighting for King Henry II in Ireland, the manor is undefended - and into this vulnerability ride six Templar Knights, bearing the cross of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ.
They are not there for the land. They are not there for the herd. They are there for a battered wooden pyxis - and for Odo himself.
Odo has always known who he is. Son of Godwin Read, a good and gentle dairy farmer who loved him well. Husband to Charlotte, his lifelong love and equal - a woman of quiet intelligence and rare courage, whose ability to read and write Latin in a world where few men can do either speaks to a careful and deliberate education neither she nor Odo ever fully understood. Raised in Mellester, shaped by its fields and its people, Odo is no warrior. He carries no sword and seeks no glory. Yet good men are drawn to him - men like Jagger, a giant of a man who finds in Odo something worth protecting, and who will stand at his side through the perils that lie ahead.
But the arrival of Sir William Marshal and his Templars begins to unravel everything Odo believed about his own life - including the true identity of the man he least expected: Mellester's stern and demanding priest, Oswald. A man Odo never much liked. A man who watched over him his entire life. A man who taught both Odo and Charlotte to read, to write, and to think - quietly arming them for a future only he could foresee. A man who was never truly a priest at all.
As Bishop Immers schemes from Exeter - desperate to seize the pyxis for himself and deliver it to the Pope - and the Templars converge on undefended Mellester, Odo finds himself at the centre of a dangerous collision of Church greed, Templar secrecy, and a revelation about his own blood that will shake the foundations of everything he has ever known.
His decision to hand the pyxis to Sir William Marshal brings an unexpected reward - a handsome bestowment, and the first true gift from a father he never knew he had.
With his herd destroyed, his world upended, and truths he is only beginning to understand, Odo does what he has always done - he refuses to yield. Armed with newfound wealth, the loyalty of the formidable Jagger, and Charlotte at his side, he sets sail for the coastal province of Frisia, where the finest dairy cattle in the known world are to be found.
But the road to Frisia is long, the sea is unforgiving, and the truth about who Odo Read really is may prove more dangerous than anything he has yet faced.
Emotional, twisty, and relentlessly compelling, Falls Ende - Secundus is the second novel in Paul W. Feenstra's acclaimed medieval saga. At its heart is a simple truth - good versus evil - told through unforgettable characters, rich 12th-century detail, and a hero who wins not with a sword, but with integrity, wit, and the extraordinary loyalty he inspires in those around him. For readers who love immersive medieval sagas built on character, consequence, and moral complexity - this is historical fiction at its finest.
Best read in sequence. Falls Ende - Primus is Book 1.
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