Same deal as before, for space reasons all books starting H-S are on this page.
Historical Fiction
H
Helen of Troy by Margaret George
"Helen of Troy" is the latest offering of the amazing historical novelist Margaret George. She writes very long books encompassing the whole life of a real person, bumps and all. Her work on Henry VIII is the ultimate for Tudor fans, her novel on Cleopatra was beyond compare and now we have this-a very good book, but not her best work.
Unlike her past novels "Helen of Troy" feels more like a story and less like a total life history of the narrator. Not that this is bad, but even though some scenes are included this book has very little of Helen's early life or later life, focusing mainly on the war of Troy. Some of the mythological info on Helen's early life, such as her abduction by Theseus, is even left out of this novel, which acts to give it a more normal feel and make Helen an unusual, but not extraordinary woman of her time. Thus it is more of a story novel, and a bit unlike her past works.
When I read earlier this year "The Memoirs of Helen of Troy" by Amanda Elyot I said that Helen was a poor choice of narrator for her own life story. Ms. George proved me wrong in this. While Ms. Elyot's Helen was conceited and selfish, Helen in Ms. George's book is a normal woman of the time-and for all that she's beautiful, she may not be the most beautiful woman in the world. There is even doubt in this novel as to Zeus being her real father. Thus as a narrator, Helen does a great job of bringing the tragedy and beauty of Troy to life. She's a real person that it's pretty easy to identify with.
I also liked how Ms. George handled the Greek gods in this book. They were real, but elusive, changeable and not understandable by humans. They could be terribly mean and see it as kindness and acting to placate them was a large part of daily life. Ms. George strikes a good balance between fantasy and religion in her handling of them.
I would give this book a solid four stars. Not five because unlike her earlier works (such as her novel on Cleopatra) this novel is not mesmerizing-it does not such your attention in and hold in it place. Still though, it is a good novel and by far the best retelling of the Troy story I have read.
The Heart of The Fire by Cerridwen Fallingstar
Were I not a pagan myself there is a possibility I would think the author of this novel was insane. It claims to be a mostly-past life recall part novel sketch of the authors past life as a victim of the witch hunts in late 16th century Scotland (and that's not a spoiler, read the authors note.) If you don't believe in past lives, magic or goddess worship you may want to skip this review, and probably this book. Otherwise, read on.
Having had one past life recall myself I would say that this isn't an irrational premise to base a book on, but I seriously doubt that anyone could remember so much and as detailed an account of a life lived almost 500 years ago, even with hypnotherapy and/or drugs. That said, I do believe it is possible that the author remembered some things and wrote a novel to fill in the very large gaps she couldn't remember.
And so we have this: Fiona is a young, beautiful woman living in Scotland. Her coven is open about its practices. She, her best friend and mother are sexually promiscuous while unmarried in catholic Scotland. As is predictable, she eventually becomes a victim of a witch hunt because of the very harsh laws King James of Scotland (and later England) implemented about witchcraft.
Now, up until recently there was a belief, held in the pagan world to be fact, that several million witches were burned during the time of persecution. A belief was also held that goddess worship religion existed in pockets in most Christian countries as a remnant from before the church. Both of these have been disproved. The number of witches burned in unknown, but much lower then the number of Catholics, Protestants and Jews burned. And the goddess religion, what we know as paganism, mostly did die out except for celebrations of the sabbats which lost their meaning, and a general knowledge of herbs. Thus the historical content of this book is minimal, but is technically I suppose, still historical fiction.
And so the religion Fiona practices, and how the religion is practiced in her world is historically impossible. It is very possible that the women in her village worshiped Mary as the mother of god in the goddess form, and knew much about herbs, and practiced certain skills and arts which today are attributed to pagan roots. That said, it is still quite moving and inspiring about the goddess religion, particularly to me as a follower of it. But what is in this book is just not possible. As one example, her whole coven would have burned or killed years before if they practiced that openly in that time, and her unmarried status (and several others in her village) with being sexually active would have been more frowned upon by the village-it would have been an actual crime.
Aside from that I liked this book. It's entertaining, pretty well written and has some great love scenes (not just sex scenes, although there are a lot of those too.) One thing I really didn't like was the way the author portrays magic and witchcraft. So many people become Wiccans because of the whole magic thing, and in this book the magical actions of Fiona and others read like a fantasy novel. There is a way to write about REAL magic and real pagan rituals that don't have out and out lies or fabrications. No one is ever going to conjure a ball of light, you cannot turn anyone into a frog. But there is real magic, that anyone can work, that can be written about. The way it is in this book feels like its all for show and as a Wiccan, priestess and worker of magic it's a little offensive and very much untrue and it trivializes real magic to embellish it in writing like that.
Anyway, long story short: this is almost completely fiction, with very little actual fact, is probably not a very complete past life memory and not accurate at all about magic. But it is fun to read, so three point five stars.
The Horse Goddess by Morgan Llywelyn
I am extremely unfamiliar with Celtic mythology, which is a little odd considering that half of my genetic makeup is Celtic. So with this book I'm not sure if the story is a reinterpretation of the legend of Epona or if the author just wrote about what she thought Epona's life was like. I'm guessing it's the latter, just because while magic and fantasy elements play a part in this book Epona never does anything that would grant her goddess status. At the same time you can easily see how through oral history Epona's story could have evolved until she was held as a goddess.
This is, aside from being about Epona, a novel of the revolution of the horse. Before horses were domesticated as riding animals there was extremely limited mobility on behalf of people. There were cart horses, but they couldn't go as far or as fast or be useful in war. Riding horses really changed the world because it ment that ordinary people could travel more than five miles from their birth place with some ease.
And Epona brought, through the man she loved, riding horses to the Celtic people.
This book isn't perfect, it has problems. Most of the dialog is annoyingly stilted and Epona undergoes this massive transformation from scared young-ish girl (say 13) to sexually active totally competent confident woman in a really short period of time-like five pages. I know this is a coming of age novel (sort of) but come on-that's just too fast.
I learned a lot reading this book. I always thought that "Celtic" referred only to people in Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland but really the Celts stretched from the black sea to Ireland. So most of European history was heavily influenced by the Celts. As historical fiction goes this book has immense value. As fantasy-well, this is not really as fantasy novel. There are small amounts of magic but really it's a misclassification on the publisher's part.
Four stars.
I
The Illuminator Brenda Rickman Vantrease
Almost all the reviews I read for this book have been 90% summary, 10% review. Admittedly, these are useful. But there are too many of them, so this will contain no summary.
The Illuminator is an ok book. Actually it's a little bit more than ok. But it has its problems. Mostly for me these problems had to do with the two romances in the book. The early stages of the romances were never really explained, at one point people were friends, the next page they were lovers. I think this all could be resolved if we could have seen the early parts of the sex scenes which were not included in the book. I don't mean a real gratuitous sex scene, just maybe, ten minutes past the first kiss. It would have the romances way more real.
For those that haven't read this book, be warned, it's not particularly upbeat. It has some wonderful uplifting moments, but most of this book is pretty depressing. But then of course, life around this time period was pretty depressing.
Other than that, the book is good. But there's nothing really special about it. It doesn't have that quality some books do-the unexplained quality that makes you love them and treasure them forever. This is a good, but ordinary book. 3.5 stars.
For more reading on this time period, try Katherine by Anya Seton.
In Lucia's Eyes by Arthur Japin
I really hate to not finish a book, no matter how much I dislike the book in question. But this novel, which seemed so promising according to the other reviews, was just not readable.
I liked the premise, Casanova's only lost love turns out to have run away in shame after being disfigured by smallpox, and later they meet and engage in a battle of the genders when she is a prostitute in Amsterdam.
But this book does not read like historical fiction. Possibly it is the translation from Dutch into English which rendered this into a snooty sudo intellectual novel on the nature of suffering. Maybe it is the translation which made all of the words in this book into things rarely seen in dictionaries. I mean, normal English isn't exactly a bad language for describing things. Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, a smile is just a smile....not "any mouth game we could make of it" or something weird like that.
Anyway, the language of this book killed me. I lost interest by page 100, and I quite without finishing.
Two stars.
Inventing Memory by Anne Harris
I stayed up all night to finish this book.
This book starts off in ancient Samaria, where a slave named Shula who meets the goddess Inanna and becomes one of her priestess. But then she meets the goddess Belili and the snake of knowledge and finds her approach to the world much less demanding and selfish. But just when the story gets going we are sent to the present day, to meet a girl named Wendy.
Wendy has rough experiences in middle school, the boys teasing the girls making fun of her, and then she discovering the goddess and learns not to care what people think of her. She also meets Ray, a young artist who loves Wendy's view of the world and their relationship takes off. But Ray had an abusive father and soon his after school job gets a little rough, causing problems for him and Wendy.
But was does this have to do with ancient Sumer and rival goddess worship cults? The two parts of the book are apparently unconnected, except by Wendy's link to the goddess Belili, who she studies in college and has long felt connected to. Maybe Wendy is a reincarnation of Shula, the slave we meet in the beginning of the book. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe, it's something else entirely.
I won't tell you. The ending of this book blew me away.
Just read it, you'll enjoy it if you're a Wiccan, a historical fiction freak, or a person who loves suspense.
And the title will make sense once you finish the book. I promise.
Five stars easily.
J
K
H
Unlike her past novels "Helen of Troy" feels more like a story and less like a total life history of the narrator. Not that this is bad, but even though some scenes are included this book has very little of Helen's early life or later life, focusing mainly on the war of Troy. Some of the mythological info on Helen's early life, such as her abduction by Theseus, is even left out of this novel, which acts to give it a more normal feel and make Helen an unusual, but not extraordinary woman of her time. Thus it is more of a story novel, and a bit unlike her past works.
When I read earlier this year "The Memoirs of Helen of Troy" by Amanda Elyot I said that Helen was a poor choice of narrator for her own life story. Ms. George proved me wrong in this. While Ms. Elyot's Helen was conceited and selfish, Helen in Ms. George's book is a normal woman of the time-and for all that she's beautiful, she may not be the most beautiful woman in the world. There is even doubt in this novel as to Zeus being her real father. Thus as a narrator, Helen does a great job of bringing the tragedy and beauty of Troy to life. She's a real person that it's pretty easy to identify with.
I also liked how Ms. George handled the Greek gods in this book. They were real, but elusive, changeable and not understandable by humans. They could be terribly mean and see it as kindness and acting to placate them was a large part of daily life. Ms. George strikes a good balance between fantasy and religion in her handling of them.
I would give this book a solid four stars. Not five because unlike her earlier works (such as her novel on Cleopatra) this novel is not mesmerizing-it does not such your attention in and hold in it place. Still though, it is a good novel and by far the best retelling of the Troy story I have read.
Having had one past life recall myself I would say that this isn't an irrational premise to base a book on, but I seriously doubt that anyone could remember so much and as detailed an account of a life lived almost 500 years ago, even with hypnotherapy and/or drugs. That said, I do believe it is possible that the author remembered some things and wrote a novel to fill in the very large gaps she couldn't remember.
And so we have this: Fiona is a young, beautiful woman living in Scotland. Her coven is open about its practices. She, her best friend and mother are sexually promiscuous while unmarried in catholic Scotland. As is predictable, she eventually becomes a victim of a witch hunt because of the very harsh laws King James of Scotland (and later England) implemented about witchcraft.
Now, up until recently there was a belief, held in the pagan world to be fact, that several million witches were burned during the time of persecution. A belief was also held that goddess worship religion existed in pockets in most Christian countries as a remnant from before the church. Both of these have been disproved. The number of witches burned in unknown, but much lower then the number of Catholics, Protestants and Jews burned. And the goddess religion, what we know as paganism, mostly did die out except for celebrations of the sabbats which lost their meaning, and a general knowledge of herbs. Thus the historical content of this book is minimal, but is technically I suppose, still historical fiction.
And so the religion Fiona practices, and how the religion is practiced in her world is historically impossible. It is very possible that the women in her village worshiped Mary as the mother of god in the goddess form, and knew much about herbs, and practiced certain skills and arts which today are attributed to pagan roots. That said, it is still quite moving and inspiring about the goddess religion, particularly to me as a follower of it. But what is in this book is just not possible. As one example, her whole coven would have burned or killed years before if they practiced that openly in that time, and her unmarried status (and several others in her village) with being sexually active would have been more frowned upon by the village-it would have been an actual crime.
Aside from that I liked this book. It's entertaining, pretty well written and has some great love scenes (not just sex scenes, although there are a lot of those too.) One thing I really didn't like was the way the author portrays magic and witchcraft. So many people become Wiccans because of the whole magic thing, and in this book the magical actions of Fiona and others read like a fantasy novel. There is a way to write about REAL magic and real pagan rituals that don't have out and out lies or fabrications. No one is ever going to conjure a ball of light, you cannot turn anyone into a frog. But there is real magic, that anyone can work, that can be written about. The way it is in this book feels like its all for show and as a Wiccan, priestess and worker of magic it's a little offensive and very much untrue and it trivializes real magic to embellish it in writing like that.
Anyway, long story short: this is almost completely fiction, with very little actual fact, is probably not a very complete past life memory and not accurate at all about magic. But it is fun to read, so three point five stars.
This is, aside from being about Epona, a novel of the revolution of the horse. Before horses were domesticated as riding animals there was extremely limited mobility on behalf of people. There were cart horses, but they couldn't go as far or as fast or be useful in war. Riding horses really changed the world because it ment that ordinary people could travel more than five miles from their birth place with some ease.
And Epona brought, through the man she loved, riding horses to the Celtic people.
I learned a lot reading this book. I always thought that "Celtic" referred only to people in Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland but really the Celts stretched from the black sea to Ireland. So most of European history was heavily influenced by the Celts. As historical fiction goes this book has immense value. As fantasy-well, this is not really as fantasy novel. There are small amounts of magic but really it's a misclassification on the publisher's part.
Four stars.
The Illuminator is an ok book. Actually it's a little bit more than ok. But it has its problems. Mostly for me these problems had to do with the two romances in the book. The early stages of the romances were never really explained, at one point people were friends, the next page they were lovers. I think this all could be resolved if we could have seen the early parts of the sex scenes which were not included in the book. I don't mean a real gratuitous sex scene, just maybe, ten minutes past the first kiss. It would have the romances way more real.
For those that haven't read this book, be warned, it's not particularly upbeat. It has some wonderful uplifting moments, but most of this book is pretty depressing. But then of course, life around this time period was pretty depressing.
Other than that, the book is good. But there's nothing really special about it. It doesn't have that quality some books do-the unexplained quality that makes you love them and treasure them forever. This is a good, but ordinary book. 3.5 stars.
I liked the premise, Casanova's only lost love turns out to have run away in shame after being disfigured by smallpox, and later they meet and engage in a battle of the genders when she is a prostitute in Amsterdam.
But this book does not read like historical fiction. Possibly it is the translation from Dutch into English which rendered this into a snooty sudo intellectual novel on the nature of suffering. Maybe it is the translation which made all of the words in this book into things rarely seen in dictionaries. I mean, normal English isn't exactly a bad language for describing things. Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, a smile is just a smile....not "any mouth game we could make of it" or something weird like that.
Anyway, the language of this book killed me. I lost interest by page 100, and I quite without finishing.
Two stars.
This book starts off in ancient Samaria, where a slave named Shula who meets the goddess Inanna and becomes one of her priestess. But then she meets the goddess Belili and the snake of knowledge and finds her approach to the world much less demanding and selfish. But just when the story gets going we are sent to the present day, to meet a girl named Wendy.
Wendy has rough experiences in middle school, the boys teasing the girls making fun of her, and then she discovering the goddess and learns not to care what people think of her. She also meets Ray, a young artist who loves Wendy's view of the world and their relationship takes off. But Ray had an abusive father and soon his after school job gets a little rough, causing problems for him and Wendy.
But was does this have to do with ancient Sumer and rival goddess worship cults? The two parts of the book are apparently unconnected, except by Wendy's link to the goddess Belili, who she studies in college and has long felt connected to. Maybe Wendy is a reincarnation of Shula, the slave we meet in the beginning of the book. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe, it's something else entirely.
I won't tell you. The ending of this book blew me away.
Just read it, you'll enjoy it if you're a Wiccan, a historical fiction freak, or a person who loves suspense.
And the title will make sense once you finish the book. I promise.
Five stars easily.
Kathryn in the Court of Six Queens by Anne Merton Abbey
Katherine in the court of six queens is a historical romance novel about a fictional lady in waiting to all of Henry VIII's six queens. However, it is much more historical than romance.
Katherine herself is a Howard on her mother's side, and the cousin of Anne Boleyn. On her father's side she's the bastard granddaughter of Edward IV-this makes her royal enough that her marriage has to be ordered by the king. Since she's at court her whole life this means Henry knows everything about her love life.
Unfortunately she falls in love with a man she can never marry, the terribly dressed man of dubious parentage, John de Gael, who happens to own the only independent duchy in England. For some reason, Henry hates him. Of course, he will be Katherine's life long love.
This is not only pretty accurate stuff about the reign of Henry VIII (despite a few interjected made up characters) it's a dam fine romance about two people who grow old together, and do stop loving each other before they truly come together again. This is my favorite romance novel of all time, and the only book I'm not mad at for making Henry appear like a buffoon. Generally I like to see him as more dignified, but his personality in this book works-it's not ridiculously stupid or overbearing.
Five stars, because every now and then you just need to read a good romance novel.
L
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
In the midst of "Da Vinci Code" inspired mania, this book was born. In Europe, where I first saw it, it was hailed as a "Da Vinci Code" for women. In reality this book is just a badly written suspense novel (just like the "Da Vinci Code") riding to fame because it deals with the Holy Grail. In the middle ages this cup-or whatever it was-was thought to be in possession of the Cathers in southern France. Yes, this is the same religion that largely held Jesus never died for their sins. In this novel, they appear to have found the grail, not been given it by Mary Magdalene like in the history of the Cathers, and thus started a centuries long war between powerful fringe religions.
It's been a while since I read this book, so I am fuzzy on some of the details. What I do remember is A) being a little upset at the way the author portrayed the religious sect of the Cathers, and B) just not being impressed by this book. There are too many details and at the same time to few. Surrounding details are abundant yet the suspense is so elusive that there almost is none at all. Most of the "plot twists" in this book are quite obvious to the reader and the ending could have come strait out of a soap opera. In her chosen venue the author had so much to work with around the Grail legends, but she didn't really take advantage of it.
All in all, skip this book and read "Daughters of the Grail" by Elizabeth Chadwick instead. It's a way better holy grail story. And be aware-Dan Brown did not by any means make the first written connection between Mary Magdalene and the holy grail. It is a very common historical theme.
The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
I just read The Lady and The Unicorn for the second time, and was so enchanted I had to review it.
Readers of the Girl with a pearl earring will be delighted, the book is much in the same vein, but with multiple points of view instead of just one (still all in first person of course.) It's about the creation of the famous lady and the unicorn tapestries, which to be honest, I never heard of before reading this book.
I finally tacked down what I like so much about Tracy Chevalier while reading this book. And that is this: everything she writes about is ordinary. None of her characters are star crossed lovers (though they may be in love) or great heroines. They are real ordinary people who are truly living in the time period she placed them (The weaver even thought he had never seen a unicorn, but then they lived in the east with elephants!) Because of this her books are immensely comforting to read...like, reading about old friends.
A lot of people give this book bad reviews because of the romantic aspects. I think everyone who is critical of this book should read it and not judge it, once through. If you still don't like it then you can complain. But really, I love it, and think others will too. It's a simply written little masterpiece.
My only complaint is that in the tapestries pictures in the middle of the book the whole of each tapestry isn't shown-you can only see the ladies and the unicorn, which I suppose is appropriate. Five stars.
Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine
It seems that the reviews for this book are all over the map. This is totally understandable to me, as I just finished the book and spent a while sorting my feelings about it out.
That said, I really like this book. I'll tell you why in a moment.
Jo Clifford is nineteen years old and volunteers to be a patient in a hypnosis experiment taking place at her college. While under hypnosis Jo becomes extremely agitated and then, her hands begin to bleed. The professor conducting the experiment is thrilled, he thinks Joanna is showing signs of stigmata, but his assistant Sam Franklyn, is scared. Then, Jo's hearts stops and she nearly dies. Sam manages to bring her back to life. This is the prolog.
Fast forward fifteen years. Jo has recently broken up with Nick, who is Sam's younger brother. She is a freelance journalist and is starting to write a series on nostalgia, one of the articles is about past lives and reincarnation. At this point she has no idea what happened to her all those years in the college experiment because the doctor conducting it gave her a post hypnotic suggestion so she wouldn't remember.
Nick does know, and try's to dissuade her from writing the article, but she is too mad at him for cheating on her to care. So she begins to write the article, and is hypnotized by a doctor she goes to interview.
Immediately Jo is flung back into the past. She is Matilda de Braose, women who is married to a twelve century marcher lord in Wales, but is love with the handsome Richard de Clare. And King (currently Prince) John of Robin Hood fame is in love with her.
As Jo continues her trips to the past via regression it becomes obvious that the three men in Matilda's life, her husband William, her lover Richard and her lord John are all involved in Jo's life as well. The men, Sam, Nick and Tim (a photographer Jo frequently works with) begin to act strangely.
This book was very exciting. The story line is going at a break neck speed until about page four hundred, when it slows down it bit. It does seem like some of it could be cut, but I couldn't tell you what parts.
My only gripes with this book are few. The scenes in the past can be a little boring, the evil man in Jo's life seemed to becomes very evil very fast, and I don't think you can really hypnotize someone over the phone. Also I was a little confused about the scenes where Jo thought she was Matilda talking to her husband but really she was being hypnotized, and something like the conversation she was having never really took place in Matilda's life. (You'll understand that if you read the book.)
Spolier alert!!
Also given everything that happened in the book the ending was a little un realistic. I mean, after having a man rape you in not one but two incarnations it seems like you'd have trouble trusting him again, much less loving him. But the destiny aspect of the book sort of makes it all seem ok (not that its ever acceptable to rape someone, it just sort of explains it) and hey, its fiction.
I give this book a very solid four point five stars and I would definitely try something else by this author.
Lady Jane by Unknown Author
There is a reason no one really reads movie tie in books-and this book is a classic example of why. I ever saw the movie Lady Jane of which the book based but I knew about Jane as the Nine Day queen and thought this book would be a novel of that. Instead it appears to be a word for word retelling of the movie which no visual element at all. I mean, Jane and her husband became lovers in one spot, but the only clue I had to that happening was that the next morning they were talking about how they didn't hate each other. There wasn't even a break in the paragraph from talking at night to talking in the morning! Where was the sex? Also Guilford (the husband) goes from being an ass to a wonderful person in about five minutes!
I can't recommend this-its lacking too much.
One star
Lady of the Reeds by Pauline Gedge
This is the story of Thu, an improbably blue eyed Egyptian girl from the little town Aswat. I say improbable because the genetic trait for blue eyes is recessive, not dominate and therefore if Thu had one parent with brown eyes (which is dominate, and the case in the book) and one with blue, her eyes would still be brown. I am told that if three of her grandparents had blue eyes Thu could have blue eyes, but considering that her two grand parents on her mother's side were African, well, the odds aren't good. But that's a stupid complainant. Anyway, Thu has blue eyes, and because of them her life takes some strange turns.
Thu always wanted out of Aswat, and so when she was 14 and a seer came to consult the local god of war she swam out to his barge and offered her virginity if he would see into her future. The seer, Hui, who is an albino, refuses the offer of sex, by impressed by Thu's reading and writing ability, which her brother taught her, he takes her with her back home to be trained as a concubine for the Pharos harem. You see, Hui has a plan for the future of Egypt.
I actually thought this book was better written than the last Pauline Gedge book I read, the Eagle and the Raven, even though that book was more exciting. Gedge is really great at putting you inside Thu's headspace, and the terrible things she does for ambition seem reasonable. You feel her desperation to leave the sandy waste of a town where she was born, her true love of the Nile, her deep awe of her brother and Hui and her total humiliation and rage when she has her first sexual encounter with the Pharos.
So I give this book five stars, and I will be reading its sequel, House of Illusions.
Legacy by Susan Kay
This is without a doubt the premier novel about Queen Elizabeth the first I have ever read and it is a shame that it is out of print. No author I believe, has come close to Ms. Kay at presenting Elizabeth and those who were around her as true people with all of the jealousy's, faults and joys that really were in their lives. And she does in a style of writing I love the most. Epic, large scale and all encompassing.
Elizabeth is hard to write fiction about I think, but that doesn't stop people from trying. As a subject for a bio epic she's perfect-the woman was both the luckiest and unluckiest woman in the world in her lifetime and wrote all other powers in Europe to their knees. Not to mention the many rumors in her life. What happened with Admiral Seymour? Did Robert Dudley marry his wife Amy so he could marry Elizabeth? Did she and Dudley ever consummate their love? And what was the deal with Essex?
Read it and find out. Five stars to a great novel. The best, most realistic (as apposed to romanticized) version of her life I have ever read. In fact, one of the better books I have ever read.
The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie
The old Roman Empire was a kind of nasty place to be if you weren't Roman. But for Auriane, a daughter of the Germanic tribes, it's become a hell on earth. All Auriane really wanted in life was to be like her lovely mother and have a good home. But being born to the warlike Chatti tribe as the daughter of the tribes' leader insures her life will different than she planned. From her first day on earth when a powerful seer/witch woman predicts she will cause the death of her father-the greatest sin a person can commit, Auriane is different. Over her short teenage years she becomes a daughter of the earth, a warrior women sworn to protect her people, and never know the touch of a man.
Yet all along a young man in Rome, Marcus Julianus, gutter rat who turned out to be the lost son of a Senator has been wearing a bag of dirt around his neck, a bag given to his father by a wise woman of the Chatti tribes, a bag that there is only one other like...around Auriane's neck.
Destiny collides in the fierce arena of the Roman imperial court and the terrile but lovely woods and bogs of Auriane's home. Auriane must fight for her life against the might of Rome and Marcus Julianus must fight for his own in the corrupt Emperors court...can these two people prevail?
This is a wonderful book. It's full of life, and the descriptions are so vivid I found myself wondering that I was reading a book, not falling back in time. The characters are all very real people (even the larger than life Auriane is insecure about her body) and the plot line is so vivid and realistic it's hard to stay still while reading. You will be running around, book in hand, screaming for the good guys and cursing the bad. This is probably the best book I ever read, bar none. And there is not one boring sentence in the whole book. Its chopped full of action, romance and adventure, and it's impossible to believe this is a first novel. I plan on buying another copy soon so I'll have one for mine falls apart. I'm sure I will read this book every year of my life.
I recommend this book to any one who loves history, drama, romance, or action. It has something for everyone, and I just received an email from the author saying the sequel is done (!!!) and it will be published in November of this year. Lady of light here we come...I'm preordering.
Five stars
The Love Knot by Elizabeth Chadwick
I wouldn't say that "The Love Knot" is the best of Elizabeth Chadwick's books that I've read (that will always be "Daughter's of the Grail") but it is second best, and thus, being written by Elizabeth Chadwick, it is very good indeed.
This takes place during the English Civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda (with her son Henry Plantagenet) and follows supporters of Matilda's cause over a period of about 14 years. Oliver is a man just home from the Crusades, where he made a pilgrimage in honor of his young wife who died in childbirth. Once home he finds that King Stephen has stolen his family lands, and signs on with the Empress Matilda so he can get them back. On a journey to Bristol to get orders he comes across a burned down country-house where he grew up, with one almost dead woman he grew up with, her young son, and his nurse. The nurses' name is Catrin.
Catrin and the dead woman's son (who happens to be the bastard son of the old king) Richard, are taken by Oliver to Bristol. Naturally, we have a love connection between Oliver and Catrin, both of whom are raw and damaged by the deaths of their spouses. Catrin also starts to learn the trade of a midwife, and thus we are taught a great deal about childbirth and healing in the middle ages (it wasn't pretty.) Reading this part of the book will make you glad that you we born in the 20th (or 21st) century and have access to modern medical care and good birth control!
Then something happens in Catrin's life which changes everything, allegiances, love and both her and Oliver's lives. But still they are bound by the love knot that Ethyl, the midwife who raised Oliver and taught Catrin, made for them.
As always, if it's by Elizabeth Chadwick you are guaranteed a good read. This is one of her more romantic and less biographical novels, comparable best probably to "The Marsh King's Daughter." If you like romance, medical history, action adventure and good twisted plot you'll like this book. I do agree at time the characters are a little stereotypical, but it's not enough to detract from the overall novel.
Five stars.
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