EDICIONES B 2015

A novel about the construction of the grand and imposing Castle of Loarre. The dream of men and women who defied their fate a thousand years ago. Between the Tierra Llana and the Aragonese Pyrenees stands the most important Romanesque military monument in Europe: the Loarre castle-abbey, an impressive fortress built when the region was a dangerous borderland. How was it constructed? Who accomplished such a feat?

It all began when a daring monarch, King Sancho III the Great, decided to erect a fortification on a remote, sparsely populated mountain range, from which the Muslim enemy could be spotted ten kilometers away. With the promise of a better future, he attracted a group of men and women for whom survival was a daily act of heroism.

Among them were a Lombard master builder; Juan the carpenter and his son Fortún; Ava the archer; Javierre, a young man whose ambition grew alongside the castle; and a priest loyal to the old Hispanic rite, accompanied by the intelligent and mysterious Eneca.

With their limited means and knowledge, they overcame the constraints imposed by ignorance and power, ultimately completing the religious and military fortress from which one of the most important medieval kingdoms emerged, a key player in the Reconquista.

This is their epic.