Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them, a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua.
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[THREE MILES up the River Thames from the centre of Oxford, some distance from where the great colleges of Jordan, Gabriel, Balliol, and two dozen others contended for mastery in the boat races, out where the city was only a collection of towers and spires in the distance over the misty levels of Port Meadow, there stood the priory of Godstow, where the gentle nuns went about their holy business; and on the opposite bank from the priory there was an inn called the Trout]***
(Random House Audiobooks, 19 October 2017, 13 hours 14 minutes, audiobook, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2019, a book you meant to read in 2018, bought from @audibleuk, narrated by Michael Sheen)
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I loved Pullman's His Dark Materials series so couldn't wait to read this, the first in a prequel trilogy. I borrowed the ebook book from the library last year but couldn't finish it. So I treated myself to the audiobook. La Belle Sauvage is a fantastic book. I was hooked from the first chapter. Many of the characters from His Dark Materials are here, only younger and we meet a whole host of new people. Lyra is a baby. This book offers a lot of insight into the motivations of the main players in His Dark Materials and the events in those books. You really need to have read His Dark Materials to fully appreciate La Belle Sauvage. So much happens in this book. Lyra's mother, Mrs Coulter is even more of a monster in this book. The story is brilliantly paced with events spiralling more and more out of Malcolm and Alice's control. La Belle Sauvage is riveting. I've pre-ordered the next audiobook, The Secret Commonwealth due in October.