What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
Secret Sacrament
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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YA-- invading army, invader runs away and ends up helping the invaded [s]
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Probably not it (more fantasy than historical), but could it be The Secret Sacrament? http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...He ends up sacrificing himself by (view spoiler) Then he lays down and dies.
The broad strokes of the plot you describe remind me of After The Downfall, by Harry Turtledove. I don't remember it well enough to say if the more specific details match. The protagonist was a Nazi officer magically transported from the fall of Berlin to the world where the action takes place, though, and I figure that's gotta be a pretty useful indicator to see if it's the book you remember.
I'm pretty certain it's The Secret Sacrament. Thank you so much!
Cool! That was one of my favorite books when I was little : )
There was some sort of war/invasion going on between two groups of people. One group being the native, primitive people. The protagonist, for whatever reason, goes to live with the natives. He was trying to hide from the more advanced group. I think he might have been in their army, or maybe he was some sort of important figure, who knows. He may have had a brother/relative/friend with him, or who came searching for him personally. He ends up being taken in by the primitive group, and falling in love with a woman there. He may have been planning to stay only briefly, but then decides to help them fight.
I have a vague memory of a scene in a tent. There's an old wise man, possible the woman's father. (He may be gravely ill, now that I think about it, but that may be later. I definitely think he dies though. At least he's very very old.) The sleeping arrangement in he tent was very strange for the protagonist.
The protagonist had to be blond, and the natives brunette, because there is a scene in which his lady love dyes his hair, including his eyebrows, in a stream, with some sort of crushed something.
Then some stuff happens, I've no idea what, and the whole group of people ends up imprisoned by he more advanced army. I think they must have known that the protagonist was among them at this point, but he was uncooperative so they held him with the rest of them? Or was this a completely different army?
While captive, he realizes his girlfriend is pregnant, because her breasts have grown.
He somehow leads them to escape, but is mortally wounded in the process. Or maybe he was injured beforehand and he only let it get to him once they were free. Anyway, he goes to lie down by the river and die, while everyone else walks away.
I don't think everything was solved though. There was some mission that needed doing. He might have hidden his injury and separated from the group with the excuse that he was going to do that mission.