Los Alamitos resident T.M. Carter found inspiration for his debut novel while traveling last year with his family along Spain’s Mediterranean coastal roads.
Historic castles and ancient ruins dotted these highways. He drove his family south from Barcelona to Granada, stopping at the Castle of Peniscola, where he learned about the Templar Knights.
In Granada, he and his family visited the Alhambra, an ancient Moorish fortress. The grandeur of the medieval castles mingling with the ornate Moorish architecture created a tapestry of ideas for him. As an avid historian, Carter melded his fresh ideas into a historical fiction that has relevance in today’s modern world.
In his book, The Lion of the Cross: Tales of A Templar Knight, he follows a young boy named William de Scotia who is born between the two faiths of Christianity and Islam.
William is a son of the murderous Lion of Islam, Sultan Baibars I. His mother, an innocent stripped of her Scottish nobility and dignity, was sold into bondage by a diabolical Genoese slaver to Baibars.
William is the lesser son of the Mameluk Sultanate and fated to be his eldest brother’s elite guard. When his barbarous father is suspiciously poisoned, his eldest brother ascends the throne and William prepares to embrace his destiny.
William is forced to flee his beloved Cairo when an ambitious emir, Qalawun, and his cunning son, Khalil, overthrow his brother. With the aid of a mysterious Templar Knight, he escapes to the Christian stronghold of Acre. Orphaned by fate, William must enter life’s crucible and become more than just a boy. Because when one is young, the future is but a mirage in the desert both cruel and deceptive.
Through the eyes of a boy, the story transports you through actual events of the 13th century, an age in peril, where a delicate peace between Christians and Muslims exists and hangs on a precipice. A holy war is sermonized from minarets and pulpits.
The Lion of the Cross: Tales of a Templar Knight is the first of three novels and is available in paperback through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and as an e-book through Amazon, iBook, Nook, and Kindle.
A long time resident of Los Alamitos and Seal Beach, T.M. Carter lives with his wife and two sons, Brent and Brandt, who attend school in Los Alamitos. He is a military veteran, avid historian, and author with a background in business and investigative research. For more information about T.M. Carter, his novels, and other short stories written by him, visit his website at www.thetemplartales.com.