Will I love The Eight?

This story is cleverly constructed around a mythical chess set once owned by Charlemagne that is capable, upon complete assembly, of providing its owner with untold power.

Its parallel timelines start in the French Revolution, where an order of nuns is charged with dispersing the pieces to keep them from the wrong hands. In the modern-day story, Catherine Vellis, a computer expert sent to Algeria on an assignment, gets caught up in a chase to reunite them.

The prose is as magical as the story, particularly in its richly detailed look at revolutionary France.

Two timelines, amazing heroines, a globe-trotting adventure, an ancient powerful chess set sought by goodies and baddies throughout the world for centuries, romance and danger, and self-discovery—it is safe to say this novel was a major influence on our book!

Reading it as a teen, I longed to be brilliant enough to be a player in an international intrigue, but the beauty of books like this is that they make you feel like a participant in your own right. We love a book that sends readers on their own thrilling adventure, and this book fully delivers. 

This book, originally published in the late eighties, has always held a place on my bookshelf. It ties in a dual timeline, a mystical chess set possessing magical properties, and a variety of wonderful characters. Katherine Neville casts an intriguing spell mixing her fictional characters with historical figures. All are on a quest to solve a mystery in modern times as well as two hundred years prior. The Eight is a grand adventure and has returned to my TBR pile more than a few times.

Katherine Neville delights her audience in a story that spans centuries. We’re seamlessly taken from the era of the French Revolution to 1972 and the imminent restructuring of the world’s oil production by OPEC as we follow Catherine Velis, a modern computer expert, as she learns of a powerful relic, Charlemagne’s legendary chess set.

Amid a backdrop of mysterious alchemical rites, larger-than-life historical figures and events, the key characters weave a magical tale of an eternal chess game between opposing forces. Where the pieces are people. An eternal game where pawns can become queens. The novel is a historical delight… show more.