Dear Author » saga

REVIEW: The Silver Locket by Margaret James

Jayne — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 10:00:51 +0000

“If life is cheap, how much is love worth?
It’s 1914 and young Rose Courtenay has a decision to make. Please her wealthy parents by marrying the man of their choice – or play her part in the war effort?

The chance to escape proves irresistible and Rose becomes a nurse. Working in France, she meets Lieutenant Alex Denham, a dark figure from her past. He’s the last man in the world she’d get involved with – especially now he’s married.

But in wartime nothing is as it seems. Alex’s marriage is a sham and Rose is the only woman he’s ever wanted. As he recovers from his wounds, he sets out to win her trust. His gift of a silver locket is a far cry from the luxuries she’s left behind.

What value will she put on his love?”

Dear Ms. James,

The lovely cover for your book “The Silver Locket” caught my attention even before I knew anything about the plot. When I discovered it is set during World War I, I knew I had to try it. But even though I found it well written and researched, ultimately the telegraphing of the major plot points and the final fate of one of the characters left me slightly dissatisfied.

The book begins in prewar 1914 and continues through 1919 thus putting it in what I call the saga category. Add to that the fact that the central characters are involved in such a horrible war, and I knew that there would be plenty of separations, heartache and tragedy. At this point in my life, I’ve discovered that usually I don’t care for these long, drawn out stories anymore. But in this case, the separations are skipped over thus mitigating that aspect I don’t care for.

The historical elements seem to be well researched and are included in a way that flows with the story rather than clogging it up with “oh, look at all the information I uncovered while writing this book” details. While the early section of the book seems a touch bland, once Rose runs off to London to be a nurse and Alex reaches the trenches, the color and intensity of the narrative hightens. I like that you don’t go overboard with high flown phrases or TMI about the nastier details of nursing or life at war. There’re a gracious plenty to adequately illuminate what’s going on without too much to gross out.

However, there is a tendency to include sign posts of upcoming plot points. When you included information about how nurses could be injured moving from one railroad car to another, I knew sooner or later Rose would be injured thusly. Ditto when Rose blithely tells another nurse that Red Cross trains were never bombed and that she wanted to go to Russia as an adventure because nothing would happen there. It was like road construction signs warning of upcoming detours and delays.

The story is about much more than just Alex and Rose. It’s chock-a-block with other characters though they do all center on Rose and Alex. While I like having a rich blend of secondary characters to fill out the plot, in the end, it felt as if a lot of these people were in the story enough to annoy me trying to remember who they all were without being much more than cardboard figures trotted out when you need to heap another roadblock in the road to Alex and Rose’s final happiness. I needed either more or less of them.

And my weren’t there roadblocks galore. Marriages, babies, class differences, adultery, parental expectations, the evil villain, supposed death, injuries, and disinheritance along with the war and its attending horrors were all things for Rose and Alex to overcome. I don’t mind that true love never runs smooth and that the heroine and hero will have to work for their HEA but as I read along, it felt like a check list of soap opera points that needed to be included.

And let’s look at the villain of the story. I won’t mention a name but it will be obvious to readers whom I’m talking about. Like a bad penny he keeps turning up throughout the story, right when he’s needed to sow discontent and act as one of the aforementioned roadblocks. And though I can see that he can’t be made to pay for his crimes and misdeeds before the end of the book – since he needs to be available to wreck more havoc – I’ll be honest and say that his ultimate fate pissed me off. “What?!” I sputtered. “He does all these things, causes all this trouble and *this* is how he’s made to pay?” Okay, I can see that his class and connections would protect him to some degree from official condemnation and accountability but for me he needed to pay, and pay dearly, even if only privately, for what he’d done.

So, the abundance “I knew it was coming” Murphy’s Law events plus the seemingly endless obstacles to our HEA lessened my enjoyment of the book.
The story is technically well written, I wanted to know what would happen, wanted Alex and Rose to find their happiness, appreciated the time you took with research and how nicely it’s added to the story but when I close a book slightly depressed, it’s not a good sign. I’m sure readers who want to watch a heroine and hero triumph over a mountain of obstacles on the way to final bliss will like it better but for me it’s a C-.

~Jayne

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon| Smashwords

REVIEW: The Phoenix by Ruth Sims

Jayne — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:00:37 +0000

Dear Mrs. Sims,

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect of a Gay Victorian romance novel written by a mid-west cookie baking grandmother. But I guess it just goes to show that 1) readers should never prejudge a book and 2) any author can write about anything if the story is in them to be told.

This really is in the vein of the long Victorian novels of yore. We get two protagonists both of whom had bad and good childhoods. Jack Rourke and his twin brother Michael are the sons of a whore and an abusive sailor father. Raised, if you can use the term, in the rookeries of London, most of what they know is being poor and being beaten whenever their father’s ship docks.

Jack has found an escape in the company of a troupe of actors and a mentor in its lead actress. After a final, horrible confrontation with his father, he escapes with her help and is adopted by her wealthy brother into a world he could never have imagined. Taking the name Kit St. Denys, he becomes one of England’s most accomplished young actors leading a true rags to riches existence.

Nicholas Stuart, raised in the country by his stern, ultra religious father to be a physician, finally broke with his family when he couldn’t stand the restrictions imposed by them. After graduating from medical school, he moved to London and opened a clinic for the poor. His path finally crossed with the magical Kit and both realize that the other is someone special. Kit is more willing to accept their sexual attraction while Nicholas is swamped by guilt even as he continues to crave Kit’s company.

The two men don’t understand the reason for the attraction nor do Kit’s friends and associates. But it’s there, it’s powerful and for a while the two are happy. Until a falling out sends Nicholas fleeing to America and into a marriage he hopes will “cure” him of his desire for Kit.

Furious at his abandonment, Kit vows to track Nicholas down. What neither man knows is that a world of love, pain, heartache, triumph and revenge will come before their story is complete.

I’ll make a confession here. Sagas really aren’t my thing and this is one mother of a saga. Again like a good Victorian novel there are twists and turns and turns and twists and lots of stuff that happens. A chunk of the book follows Kit from 14 to his early 20s, then Nicholas from birth to later 20s, then everything that happens afterwards. There are tons of characters, lots of torrid emotion and honestly, I felt like it went on and on and on. And on. I used to like this kind of story. I find that isn’t the case anymore.

In this extensive journey through the Kit’s and Nicholas’s lifestories, you show us everything about them. There are no surprises as to what has shaped and molded them, their views on life and sin and the world. As such, I felt that as the story progressed further, there was nothing for me to learn, nothing to show me but these two angsting and tilting against each other. Therefore, I didn’t truly feel emotionally invested in finding out what happened next.

I have to also admit to a slight peeve. For a while after Kit was adopted, I began to feel like he was becoming almost too perfect to be true. He was a natural at fencing, dancing, and horseback riding. He soaked up reading and history, French and deportment. I wouldn’t have been surprised if you said he learned Icelandic in a weekend or something. I was getting set to hate him when you were kind enough to give him a few flaws in maths and map reading inability.

From what I’ve heard of the acting world, it seems like you captured it well – the love of the smell of greasepaint, being the center of attention, feeling they live in their own little world, needing to recap their triumphs and missteps in after performance parties.

Also, I like that Kit’s fellow actors and actor friends just didn’t “get” what Kit sees in Nico, as Kit calls him. But isn’t this often the case? Close friends can’t know what holds a couple together as they’re not in on the relationship. However I wanted to get what it was about Nico that soothed Kit’s nightmares. Why it was Nico or no one. And I never understood this beyond Kit just insisting it was so. And at one point, Nico came off as sounding like a crisis counselor – you must face your fears. You can’t let them control you, etc, etc. It seemed a little too advanced psychology for the era but perhaps I’m mistaken.

I’ll cloak this next bit since I would call it a major spoiler. I LOATHE villains who won’t stay dead. I really, really dislike things like this in books. If you kill someone off, the let him be gone.

By this stage in the story, it was a slog for me. An endless soap opera. On and on and on. The last third of the book seemed to go on forever. And Nicholas’s poor wife Bronwyn. Did she and David Galvin get together? Does she find anyone or are we to be left to think of her as a harridan from hell? Honestly, I don’t blame her for her anger or her reaction to the truth about Nicholas. He lied to her for years, cheated on her then asked for a divorce. Even if it was on the grounds of his desertion of her, she’s still going to be held to blame by a lot of society.

And my final thoughts of Kit are that he’s a self absorbed brat. Twice he runs off and lets Nicholas think he’s dead. When I end a book having more sympathy for Nico’s poor wife than I do the two “heroes” then something is wrong. Even my interest in Nico’s later venturings into the new realm of psychology couldn’t jump-start the story for me. Though I agree with Ina that nurses aren’t paid nearly enough to put up with the manhandling that she got from Kit.

Kit and Nico both have difficult childhoods but in different ways. Kit endures harsh physical punishment and lives in squalor while Nico endures religious fervor and turns in on himself while trying to live up to impossible standards of moral perfection. You throw every obstacle except the kitchen sink at them before finally calling it quits yet still don’t tell me how they’re going to live together in a time when homosexuality was still a crime. Ultimately, when I finished the book the whole thing just depressed me and made me feel like I’d run 2 marathons. I just wanted to stagger off to bed.

I don’t hold you to blame for the fact that the style of story you chose to tell is one I no longer care for. But I did want to feel something more than pity for a poor, put upon wife or relief that Kit was finally maturing enough to go back to Nicholas – who I felt should have boxed his ears. Maybe after reading so many glowing reviews for the book I expected more. But it’s not what I got from the experience. C-

~Jayne

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon. Kindle format only that I can find.

REVIEW: No Crystal Stair by Eva Rutland

Janine — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:00:47 +0000

Dear Ms. Rutland,

Your book, No Crystal Stair, came to my attention a couple of years ago when I was perusing Library Journal’s best books of the year lists from previous years. Back in 2001, Library Journal designated No Crystal Stair one of the five best romances of 2000. I was intrigued enough by that to hunt down a copy of the book, but it went into my TBR pile and did not emerge from it until I recently picked it up again thanks to Keishon’s TBR challenge.

This month’s assignment from Keishon was to read “Historical romance or fiction or mystery.” I have loads of historical romance as well as some historical fiction and historical mystery in my TBR pile, most of it set during the 19th century. This book stood out from the rest of the pile in two ways: it takes place during the 20th century, and the characters it follows are African Americans who must face obstacles which include Jim Crow and prejudice.

Published by Harlequin’s Mira Books division as general fiction, No Crystal Stair follows one couple, as well as their friends and family members, from the early 1940s through the early 1970s (there is also an epilogue set in 1999). In doing so, the book provides readers with a window to the social changes that took place during those years while telling the story of Ann Elizabeth and Robert Metcalf’s marriage.

The story begins in segregated Atlanta in the spring of 1942, when Ann Elizabeth Carter, a senior at Spelman College, tells her mother, Julia Belle, that she has received a marriage proposal from Dr. Dan Trent. In the upper echelons of black Atlanta society, Dan is considered a great catch, and Julie Belle wants her daughter to marry a doctor, as she herself did. But Ann Elizabeth is not sure that her feelings for Dan are strong enough, and she puts off accepting his proposal.

Later the same day, Ann Elizabeth’s father, Dr. William Randolph Carter, is driving her back to school when he stops at the small black hospital where he practices medicine and hears that he is needed by the Suber family. He takes Ann Elizabeth on his house call. At the Suber house, Dr. Carter and Ann Elizabeth discover that the Subers’ two sons have been severely injured in a fight after being attacked by white boys.

Dr. Carter is still patching up one of the boys when policemen come to arrest them. As politely as he can, Ann Elizabeth’s father asks that the boys not be moved for medical reasons. Fortunately, one of the policemen, Officer Malloy, recognizes Dr. Carter, who delivered the son he secretly shares with the black woman he loves. Malloy tries to persuade his partner to listen to Dr. Carter and consider the possibility that it was the white boys who started the fight. Eventually, the policemen leave without arresting the Suber boys.

But the encounter affects Ann Elizabeth profoundly:

“Hush, child, it’s over.” He held her as he’d always held her, lending her reassurance and strength. Yet he had seemed so small, so vulnerable, standing in front of that hulk of a policeman. And he had humbled himself. She’d never seen him in that role before. She knew now that it had been necessary to protect the boys. The fierce pride she felt for her father battled with embarrassment at his humiliation.

For a young black woman in the 1940s, Ann Elizabeth has led a relatively sheltered life, and it is the encounters with bigotry and injustice, large and small, that her mother wants to protect Ann Elizabeth from. She believes that marriage to Dan Trent would allow her daughter to remain protected, at least as much as that is possible for her.

But Ann Elizabeth only likes Dan as a friend, and when her brother Randy, who recently joined the army’s new training program for black pilots, brings an army buddy with him to his sister’s debut, it is almost love at first sight for Ann Elizabeth and Robert Metcalf.

Rob is the son of a widow from Los Angeles. His father, a mechanic, died just as Robert was about to begin high school, and Rob had to take odd jobs to help his mother make ends meet. He attended Fresno State on a football scholarship, and when an Army officer came to Rob’s school to recruit men for the Air Corps’ pilot training program, Rob was bitten by the flying bug.

Robert was rejected by the Army because of his race, but rather than giving up, he tried the Navy and the Marines, and when they too rejected him, he wrote letters to congressmen, senators, and even President Roosevelt. When the Army Air Corps finally decided to accept black men, Rob was among the first to sign up.

After a fast courtship, Ann Elizabeth and Rob marry and she moves into his room at a rooming house on the Negro Air Corps base in Tuskegee. There she has to make do with a much less comfortable living arrangement than what she is used to, but although she feels the privation keenly, Ann Elizabeth never complains.

Ann Elizabeth and Rob’s marriage also brings her brother Randy and her good friend Sadie back together. Randy and Sadie had a romance in high school, but it ended when Randy and Ann Elizabeth’s mother decided that Sadie wasn’t good enough for her son, and that she could get her out of the way… by sending her to nursing school.

Now Sadie is a nurse, but as grateful as she is to Julia Belle for her education, she is still in love with Randy, the first person to make her feel that her dark skin is beautiful. And Randy once again falls for Sadie. He gives her an engagement ring but refuses to marry her before the end of the war.

Meanwhile, World War II is raging and pilots are badly needed, but the men of the Negro Air Corps are forced to sit on the sidelines while the Army tries to decide what to do with them. The pernicious belief that black men can’t pilot as well as white men frustrates Rob, Randy and their fellow Tuskegee pilots, who want to do their part to defend the country.

When the men’s orders finally come, Ann Elizabeth is pregnant. She must say goodbye to her brother and to Rob, and return to her parents’ home in Atlanta, to await news from Europe.

There’s a lot more to Ann Elizabeth and Robert’s story, and while I don’t want to spoil it, I do want to say that the book follows them through the war and post-war years, from segregation and Jim Crow to Civil Rights demonstrations and school integration. Together they experience heartbreak and joy, loss and triumph. At times they are able to overcome discrimination through determination and achieve some of their dreams, while other dreams remain out of their reach due to racism.

Neither Rob nor Ann Elizabeth is perfect, but they are both caring, sympathetic people who are invested in their marriage. Rob is ambitious and stubborn, qualities that don’t always make his life easy but that ultimately serve him well. Ann Elizabeth extends her compassion to people around her, but is less bold and a bit more apprehensive about rocking the boat. You made me care about both of them, even when they were at odds with one another.

The most dramatic part of the book for me was the section set in the 1940s, because that was when the characters faced the greatest obstacles in terms of prejudice. For example, there is a scene in which Rob secretly removes the “WHITE” and “COLORED” signs from the restrooms at the Air Corps base. As I was reading it, I was both thrilled at his courage and terrified that he would get caught and punished.

As the story moved into later decades, the characters still faced dangers, but none that seemed as dramatic as those they faced in the early sections. I think this was the case because one of the book’s aims was to show progress being made over the years. It was a huge relief to see Ann Elizabeth and Rob’s lives become safer, along with those of all minority members in the United States. But at the same time, though the later parts of the book were still enjoyable, I wish that they had resonated with me as deeply as the earlier ones.

I also wish that more time had been spent on Ann Elizabeth and Rob’s courtship, as well as the courtships of some of the other couples we meet in the course of the story. These seemed glossed over. While I enjoyed reading about the main couple’s relationship after the marriage, I would have liked a little more romance leading up to the “I do.”

The way a few of the minor characters who appeared early on, like Officer Malloy, were introduced led me to expect that I would be hearing more about them later on in the book. When these characters finally popped up again, their appearances were so brief that I wondered what the point was. They felt like loose ends to me.

Still, I very much enjoyed the time I spent with Robert and Ann Elizabeth, and I also appreciated that the book took the time to present a balanced view of people of every race and nationality. For example, while Rob was horrified when he saw the concentration camps in Germany, he was also shown kindness by a German woman. It was not the first or last time that his and Ann Elizabeth’s lives were touched by the kindness or courage of people from a variety of backgrounds.

Another thing I enjoyed was the writing style, which was both simple, and at times, evocative. The title of the book comes from a line from a poem by the African American poet Langston Hughes, which Dr. Carter is fond of quoting to his wife and children: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” I found the entire poem here and thought that it was not only very moving, but that it also encapsulates the themes of the books perfectly.

Robert and Ann Elizabeth’s life was not a crystal stair either, but like the narrator of the poem they kept climbing, and turning corners, and that is what makes normal, everyday people heroic. B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased from a second hand seller. The publisher is Mira. The ISBN is 1551666626. No ebook format.

REVIEW: The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

Jayne — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:00:55 +0000

Dear Ms. Donnelly,

When I opened the package containing the arc of your latest book “The Winter Rose” I gulped. Reason one: it’s got a very nice cover. Reason two: it’s a hella lot of book. 700+ pages of trade paperback sized book to be exact. It’s the type of book that requires a big time commitment from a reader. Not only because of the length but also because of the plot and intensity of the read. Readers who have longed for a return to the sprawling sagas of days past will rejoice, I think. That is if they really want to read this type book again. As I read it, I unfortunately found that that type of reader is not who I am anymore.

After a trip over to the Big Internet Bookstore to check out reviews of the prequel to this novel, “The Tea Rose,” I found that a lot of readers must want to read this genre again or for the first time. Reviews ran heavily towards five and four stars. However it was the three and under ones I chose to read and I found that they eerily mirrored my thoughts on this book.

For me “The Winter Rose” began as an enthralling trip back to the past. First we get a glimpse of the East London world inhabited by not only the poorest of citizens but also gangsters, crooks, and thieves. It’s a heartless world where only the strong survive and one of it’s strongest men is Sid Malone. Sid’s a leader in the crime world. We see how he’s feared by fellow criminals and the police and how he can be ruthless when anyone invades his turf. But he also inspires unswerving loyalty from those he’s helped and those he leads. Since he’s the hero, he has to have an inner core of goodness and not be beyond redemption so we learn that Sid never wanted to be a criminal. Life forced him into it yet he thinks he’s too far gone to save. But Sid has a past that won’t let go of him. There are people who want to save him and others who want to use him for their own ends.

Then just as quickly the action turns to the other side of the social coin. India Selwyn Jones, daughter of the upperclasses, has just graduated from the London School of Medicine for Women. Mostly cut off from her disapproving family by her career choice, she plans on working with the poor in a Whitechapel clinic. She’s young, idealistic and loaded with morals. I just knew of the compromises she’d have to make and eye opening moments she’d face. India quickly discovers that the poor aren’t poor just because they’re lazy or sick because they don’t know about eating good food. The lessons she learned in medical school run head first into the brick wall that is poverty.

Yet even as I read what I knew was coming, the world you’d created was so intense and well described that I would sit for two hours at a time, churning through a 100 pages a go. Of course Sid and India cross paths, of course they clash, of course they find their common ground of caring for the desperately poor people of East London and of course they eventually fall in love. But as I waited for these two to finally come together, I had to recall that in a saga, this could take a while.

I had to also recall that sagas are generally composed of a large cast of characters, that resolutions often take place over years and action occurs over vast geographic distances. This book is no exception to that. For three hundred pages the story sprawls across London, we get to know people — learning Hallmark ‘meant to tug at your heart’ backstories for most of them — and are filled in on what happened in “The Tea Rose.” In the next one hundred pages the world of the story begins to contract as all these vastly different people start to affect each other a little more than I would think is normal except in this type of story.

Then all hell breaks loose and for one hundred pages we reach what would normally be the climax of a story. Revenge, betrayals, heartbreak and some resolutions. And then it struck me that I was only 500 pages into the book. And that the hero and heroine had just been separated and some close to irreversible things — for the year 1900 — had just taken place. Oh no, I thought. I still have 200 pages to slog through. It was at this point that I finally acknowledged to myself that I’m just not a saga kind of girl anymore.

It was more with a feeling of “gotta get through this” rather than anticipation that I squared my shoulders, picked up the book again and plowed on. Improbable coincidences, lots of heartache, and melodrama fill the rest of the book which picks up six years after the above mentioned “shoulda been the end.” Sid and India meet up again, still thinking the worst of each other though never having stopped loving each other, the villain strikes one last time and just when I think that finally — finally! — these two will get their HEA, you separate them again!

At this point, I was mad. I had had enough. The HEA was okay but I got more of a feeling that Sid and India had finally been deemed to have suffered enough. I also was left with a feeling that certain key points had been shoved down my throat: Poor = noble and rich = slimy bastards. That certain characters were amazingly quick to connect plot points and intuit what needed to be known just when it needed to be. And that this book was just too long. As I said, I’m just not in the mood to watch characters being put through a wringer for 700 pages before being allowed to be happy. Saga lovers will probably devour this book and it is a good example of the breed. But I want my payoff sooner now so it’s a C read for me.

~Jayne

Can be purchased in hardback or ebook format

REVIEW: Rivals for the Crown by Kathleen Givens

Jayne — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:00:03 +0000

Dear Ms. Givens,

Your book shows that a nice cover can sell books. I was wandering in Waldenbooks, looking to use a coupon I had and randomly picked up “Rivals for the Crown.” It wasn’t until after I got home and started reading it that I realized this is a sequel to “On a Highland Shore.” I think you did a great job of catching up new readers on what happened in that book (and there’s a lot of history of some of these characters to get caught up on).

You’ve chosen one of the most tumultuous eras in Scottish history as the backdrop — a time when the fate of the nation is at stake. And then added your fictitious twists to that. This book is packed with characters and packed with action as well. Thank God for list of characters, map and geneology chart which you provide — there’re a lot of characters, both those featured in last book and those featured in this one plus historical personages, to keep up with and I would have been lost at times without the guides.

1290: Turmoil erupts when the seven-year-old queen of Scotland perishes en route to claim the crown. Two bitter foes — John Balliol and Robert Bruce — emerge as possible successors, but England’s Edward I has his own designs on Scotland.

In London, Edward has expelled all Jews from his kingdom. Rachel de Anjou is heartbroken to leave behind her best friend, Isabel de Burke, and travel with her family to the Scottish border town of Berwick. Danger is everywhere, but the tall, dark Highlander Kieran MacDonald presents a risk of a different sort.

Isabel, appointed as lady-in-waiting to Edward’s queen, Eleanor, is soon immersed in a world of privilege and peril where she attracts the notice of two men — Henry de Boyer, an English knight, and Rory MacGannon, a Highland warrior and outlaw. Isabel and Rachel are soon reunited in Berwick, but as the enmity between Scotland and England reaches its violent peak, each woman must decide where her loyalty — and her destiny — lies.

You’ve done a good job done with the complicated history (even if it was too crammed at the end) but it’s still a lot to keep straight. I would advise readers to take their time with it. I also think you strike a nice balance in presenting the medieval atmosphere — a few sounds and smells and of course constant cold during the winter but not enough to gross out modern readers. Edward I is presented as man of power with a forceful personality to move mountains. I would have loved to have had more scenes with him and a few with his Queen Eleanor. You say that the English people never liked her much, which follows what I read up on her, yet don’t really tell us why that was. Everyone’s very understanding of the Jewish faith of Rachel and her family: Kieran and Rory, Isabel and her family, others at the inn, Sarah’s Edgar and his family — almost like it doesn’t matter. And I did have problems believing that. The ultimate fate of Rachel’s family and Jocelyn add realism. I can see why Jacob decided to stay in Berwick and having Mangus in love with someone no one can quite fathom and who ultimately decides to do what she did makes it more believable. This works since the book is more historical fiction rather than a strict romance novel.

Isabel
I have to wonder at her staying in Newcastle after Florine starts to blackmail her. True she does have a dilemma about where to go yet she realizes that exposure is just a matter of time. After her last run in with Langton, I would think even the thought of him getting his hands on her again would be enough impetus to leave. She’s also a little bit of a Mary Sue character — every man not already in his own romantic relationship falls for her — French knight Henry, the King’s evil advisor Langton and of course Rory.

And forgive me asking but did Kieran and Rachel get together? The ending was kind of muzzy and I must reread the ending to be sure. Rory and Isabel both love to play the martyr card – they will sacrifice themselves for the good of the other at the drop of a hat. But they did end up making the push to get their relationship back on track in the face of tremendous odds.

Langton
Kind of hard to believe he couldn’t have tracked Isabel down any earlier than he does. You present him as a man with almost absolute power, who can, as he tells her, make or break men with a snap of his fingers. I guess in an age before our modern one of instantaneous knowledge and ability to track someone down, Isabel might have eluded him for a while but I did stop to puzzle it out.

I loved Isabel’s grandmother and her advice tempering what Isabel’s mother tells her about men. They’re not all bad and some are actually wonderful and worth seeking out and having a relationship with. Henry is sort of the most layered character in the book. Everyone else is either good or evil — not too much gray to these people.

Once again the English are the bully boys of the story — I can almost hear Mel Gibson screaming “Freeeeeeedom.” Of course not all Scots are good but the evil ones (men Rory initially fight with when he saves young girl from rape, the Guardians of Scotland who roll over and play lap dog to Edward I) are generally faceless nonentities.

Readers looking for meaty historical fiction filled with lots of saga type stuff ought to check this one out. It’s a nice change from the wallpaper historicals we see more often these days but it does have some flaws. B-

~Jayne