I’ve enjoyed several of your other books for Harlequin Historicals and was delighted when you contacted me offering a copy of your latest in the “Wessex Weddings” series for possible review. (Note: FTC discloser out of the way!) And the heroine is a Fallen Woman too. Even better. At first I didn’t realize that the hero is the same man used as a decoy in “An Honorable Rogue,” but once I recalled this, it upped the incentive to read the book.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Four years ago, Lady Emma of Fulford would never have thought she’d be sorry to lose her livelihood – washing dirty laundry in an icy cold river – that puts clothes on her back and a roof over her head. But then she also never thought she’d have an illegitimate child or not be living in her father’s noble household. A love affair gone bad has landed her where she is today and that somewhere is desperate to escape the abusive father of her child who has somehow tracked her down.

Her appeal for a job to the garrison commander of Winchester, Sir Richard of Asculf, initially gets her nowhere. They have a bit of a history since he’s a BFF of Emma’s brother in law, Adam, who was awarded her father’s lands. Richard takes a little pleasure in seeing her in such reduced circumstances since Emma apparently made life difficult for them after the Battle of Hastings fallout but he’s also honest enough to admit that she stirs his sexual interest. Not that he’s going to lay a hand on her as Adam would nail him for it.

But with Judhael making threats against her and terrified that he’ll discover the fact that they have a son, Emma is pushed to offer herself to Richard as a mistress with the hope that he’ll take her and her son with him when he returns to Normandy to settle an inheritance. Can these two find love as well as sexual feelings for each other during the journey?

I like a good medieval and am glad to see the subgenre making a bit of a comeback. But for me to be interested in it, I need more than the standard Norman knight (who’s usually a bastard) and willowy Saxon maiden snipping at each other in faux medieval dialogue. I mentioned before how much I appreciate the fact that you avoid this but let me say it again to emphasize how much this means to me. No “mayhaps!” No “tis, twases!” No irate Jayne!

I haven’t read the first book in the series “The Novice Bride,” but I gather that Emma is quite changed since then. Several mentions are made of how her viewpoints on various things have changed since her days as the daughter of a powerful Saxon thane. At this point, she’s taken refuge in an inn with several ‘ladies of the night’ and far from looking down her nose at them, she thinks of them as friends. She’s even tickled pink when they show up after her wedding to wish her well. She’s practical and not above doing what it takes to see to the safety and care of her child.

Richard is shown to be human. He’s a man who can appreciate Emma’s curves and who is also not adverse to enjoying, just a little bit, seeing her pay a bit for her past actions. But his honorable side quickly comes out on top and he goes to great lengths to help her and feels guilty when they succumb to passion. I figured some revelation was coming to explain his nightmares and at first rolled my eyes a little that a big Norman knight would be so anguished at what bothers him but then thought again about how any warrior might take a particular death hard and be haunted by it.

The book is also a bit of a road romance and I enjoyed reading about the journey conditions. Definitely not modern traveling with ‘en suite’ bath included and one can forget having any privacy. You handled some aspects of the story differently than I expected which in this case is a good thing. When a potential wife for Richard is mentioned, I had images of catfights and outraged foot stomping to dread but thankfully this didn’t come to pass. When Emma imagines she feels someone watching her during their trip, I thought of several scenarios involving showdowns between the men. Again, you took a different path.

Emma’s venture towards “please don’t go there” territory alarmed me somewhat. True, she is given one good reason but I would have preferred that she ask before she acted. And let’s be honest, Judhael displays more common sense about her choice of action than she did considering she also has the welfare of her child to consider.

“Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord” – and can’t we just tell this is a Harlequin title? – is a fairly fast read and is quite readable, which I consider to be two different things. It stays away from many of the subgenre’s conventions and features two likable lead characters. I think readers interested in medievals will welcome it to the list. B-

Jayne

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: His Captive Lady by Carol Townend
2. REVIEW: An Honorable Rogue by Carol Townend
3. REVIEW: Texas Ranger, Runaway Heiress by Carol Finch

Dear Ms. Kirkman:

I wanted to like this book. Honest. A good friend of mine thought it was the bomb. Plus you have kick ass covers. And by kick ass, I mean, who at Harlequin’s art department are you boffing because your covers, unlike the book itself, are truly the bomb. If I were to judge a book by its cover, you would be getting an A. If I were to judge a book by its blurb, it would be an A. Unfortunately for both of us, I actually read the book. You are not getting an A. Just thought I would tell you that right up front so there isn’t any suspense.

The plot is thus. Rowena is at the market and sees a slave, Wulf. He is strong and gorgeous and she buys him because he can do something for her that no one else can (and yes, I have a dirty mind so I thought that something was sexual). Alas, it is not sexual. Rowena wants the slave to steal documents from the Reeve because she believes the Reeve is dishonest and caused her father to be killed. Wulf sees something in Rowena that keeps him to her task even though it would be simple to flee. Hijinks ensue. HEA.

You have an extremely different writing voice. You like to talk around things and you take a hundred and five words to do it. Half the time I had no idea what was going on. I know I am not the brightest bulb in the chandelier but I can actually read. Even when I read every paragraph three times over I wasn’t sure what happened. It is as if I was reading with a veil over my eyes that was obscuring the words and making me miss key points. When I re-read, however, those key points were non existant. Yes, you did reveal the true circumstance maybe one or two pages later but for many moments in the book, I was lost and confused.

Perhaps I can give you an example:

She had done that. The disdainful, overproud thrall was not inviolate to what she did at all. So her shaking hand reached back and touched him, in wonder, this time. Her fingers moved over the smooth flesh then– caressed it, and the bunched muscles moved with her touch. The longing dragged claws through her heart and she knew it was doomed. Because it would never be satisfied with less than what it truly desired: trust.

Her hand buried itself under the weight of the stranger’s hair; her face buried itself in his neck. Even though she knew it was pointless. She couldn’t stop herself. She felt the slight movement of his head, not away from her, but towards her.

The cruelty of that slight movement took her breath and the longing clawed its useless way through her heart. It made her know just how deeply she craved the man’s warmth and all the comfort his formidable strength might bestow. If she could just rest in that for one moment, feel that unconscious strength take just some of the weight pressing on her heart, the way it had taken all of the weight of her body.

She shut her eyes. It was false, what she did, as false as anything that had happened to her in her life. If was for the weak and for dreamers. She had trusted the enticement of its promises like the child Eadward had likened her to. Never again.

She must take care. She must see things as they were. She took a steadying breath but that only made her inhale the scent of the slave’s oiled skin, the beguiling scent released by his warmth–"dark, full of foreign spices, and under it the scent of him. Man. Clean heat and the promise of such power as would ravish the senses, just as it had done in the marketplace.

This description goes on for about 2 more pages until there is finally dialogue. I might be exaggerating here, but I think there were only about 20 lines of dialogue in the entire book. Then there is your Schone and Lauren’s like habit of the five sentence paragraph.

Very annoying.

It is hard to read.

Is this prose or poetry?

Your rhythm…iambic pentameter it is not.

She would want to flay him when she woke in the morning and found her thrall taking his ease in her bed.

She would be mortified.

She would have to stew in it.

She would wonder. And she would not like it.

There was something in the bed.

How odd.

Rowena could not remember it being there last night. On reflection, she could not remember anything about last night.

She was ale-sick. She had the worst hangover in the world.

Except– she could not even remember drinking that much.

But your worst transgression is that you have a whiny heroine who is constantly saying to the hero, “I am worthless”, just to hear the hero expound on her worth. And you have the heroine acting like a raging bitch, betraying Wulf again and again for no good reason other than because she feels “worthless.” This is all so disappointing. D for you.

Best regards,

Jane

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