I follow this author on Threads and quite like her posts. When I saw that she had a gothic erotic horror novella out about vampires, I knew I had to have it. I mean, just LOOK at that cover! THE DARK QUEEN'S APOTHECARY is set in medieval Eastern Europe. At first, it starts out feeling very much like an episode of Castlevania, with Andrei, an apothecary, being summoned to the queen to perform a task that defies the rules of life itself at the behest of a sinister Queen.
Viorica was such an interesting and dynamic character. She reminds me a lot of the heroines in Tanith Lee novels: she is a selfish creature of passion, flawed and a little sadistic, but very insecure and flawed, in a way that makes her fascinating rather than unlikable. Her sort of relationship with Andrei after he (SPOILER) becomes a vampire like her was really interesting to read. The way their roles warped and changed as they did was quite well done, and there are callbacks to numerous other gothic works in the storyline, whether it be Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein, or the legend of Lizabet Bathory.
Fun read and quite dark but not overly so. Mind the TWs.
The Royal Diaries were a spin-off of the America Diaries, and featured the fictional journals of various real royal figures as they were young adults. This particular journal is about Isabel of Castilla, who grew up to be the Isabel of the Isabel and Ferdinand duo that basically gave Columbus leave to go the West Indies (thus unleashing a wave of colonialist terrors, so... uh).
The premise of this book is that Isabel was given a book by her confessor to write all of her Seven Deadly Sins infractions in, but she, being a teenager, uses it as a burn book to chronicle the sins of everyone around her too, including her slutty sister-in-law, Queen Juana, who she HATES. Every time Juana wears a low-cut gown, Isabel makes sure we hear about it. She powdered her breasts like two plump doves, she says at one point, properly scandalized. Also, she's likely being adulterous, too, THE WHORE. Cheating on her ugly husband with a hot grandee, her daughter's probably not even legitimate. Damn, burn book!
When she's not Juana-hating, she's speculating on the authority war between her two brothers, Enrique and Alfonso, or meditating on whether her friend Catalina-- one of the conversos who converted to Catholicism from Judaism to avoid, you know, persecution-- is still a secret Jew. At one point, she's like, isn't it fascinating how Catalina is more devout than me, but I'm still a better Catholic because I was born a Catholic, of Catholic parents? And I'm like, yep, that's antisemitism for you, Isabel.
Other topics of interest are: all the ugly guys she might have to marry and the black death.
ISABEL: JEWEL OF CASTILLA, SPAIN, reminds me of CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY at times, but Catherine was way more fun. Even though these are both set during medieval times, Isabel feels more like a stick-in-the-mud narc, which is probably historically accurate. Also probably historically accurate? The antisemitism and slut-shaming. Both of these things feel like deliberate inclusions to show how much the middle ages sucked, which, again, they totally did. But I could see how people might want to forget about that. Which is probably-- again-- why they shouldn't.
I was so excited to get a copy of this book. One of my favorite historical fiction (and fantasy, let's be honest) tropes is court intrigue, and the prospect of a gay romance filled with spymasters, assassins, and Shakespearean plays really tickled my fancy. Mostly because I'd read a book before with that exact blend of tropes, called AN ASSASSIN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND TREASON, and loved it. I fully expected to become just as obsessed as this one. Which is maybe not fair to the book, but it's a fact of the world that if you read something in a genre that blows you away, that's going to frame how you approach similar books going forward.
BY ANY OTHER NAME is an okay book. Honestly, it felt like more of a 2, 2.5 book but I'm rounding up a little because the writing was great and it was fun having a shallow, self-absorbed hero as the protagonist. He's an actor and he, well, acts like it. Which made him more fun than the stoic, super macho heroes that seem to be en vogue nowadays. I like a hero who's lax with his masculinity. He has a sad backstory too: he was nearly sold into slavery and only barely escaped, and now lives on the fringes of society with revenge in his heart, as he plays females on stage to survive.
When his voice starts cracking, though, that throws a wrench in his plans and through a series of unfortunate circumstances, he ends up working for one of the lords of society that he hates so much, trying to stop Queen Elizabeth from being assassinated. DON'T read the summary/blurb for this book by the way. It has major spoilers, including something that I assumed would happen right from the beginning but is actually gradually foreshadowed and built up to in the narrative. I think it's supposed to be a shock in the book, but because it's mentioned IN THE SUMMARY, it was not a surprise at all. Publishing houses, I'M BEGGING YOU. Don't do this.
I'm giving this a mid rating because it felt much, much longer than it needed to be. The pacing is not great and the book takes ages to build up to where it's going. It's also less about court intrigue than it is about one of those SIX OF CROWS-ish heist gang sort of plots, and had I known that, I wouldn't have applied for this book, because I don't like SoC or heists. I also didn't really feel the chemistry between Will and James. They felt very platonic, more like friends than love interests. I wish their relationship had been developed more, maybe with pining or, you know, some sort of emotional understanding. Just because you have your characters physically get together, that doesn't mean you're selling it.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
Oh my god. I loved the first book in this series, THE WARLORD'S WIFE. It was basically almost perfect and had everything I love in a historical romance. This one was sooooo frustrating, though. The heroine of this book is the daughter of the heroine in the first book, and while I loved her character in book one, she was really irritating in this one. Because she is now a bratty teenager who is TSTL. And hey, you could argue that that's realistic, sure. But it's not fun to read about a heroine who continually puts herself in harm's way in the name of feminism. I really tried to give this a fair shot and read to the end but I just found myself getting more and more frustrated with the heroine. Hopefully book three is more of what I loved from book one. I still think this author's writing style is great and hope she writes more. This one just wasn't for me. :(
This was exactly what I was in the mood to read. THE WARLORD'S WIFE is such a delight. It kind of feels like a throwback to the more "gentle" Zebra bodice-rippers of the late 80s and 90s. Magnus is a rather terrifying hero, who doesn't really have any soft edges and is good at holding his throne in the North and commanding battles and not much else (even though at heart, he is, in fact, a cinnamon roll). Lida, on the other hand, is a strong heroine who feels the crush of the times, and does her best to overcome the setbacks of womanhood with wit and a light hand.
The book opens with Lida being accused of adultery by her shitty in-laws. She's pregnant and her beloved husband is barely cold in the grave, but her bitch-in-law is claiming that she must have had sex with another guy to be so big. What actually happened was that her husband was so horny for her that he banged her before they were married, but when she says this, her father in law gets even angrier and banishes her back to her previous family in shame.
Now she tends her parents' and brothers' farm and lives in relative peace with her beloved eight-year-old daughter. Which is when the viking warlord comes a-calling, looking for brides. His first wife died in childbirth and was of a weak constitution, so when he sees beautiful Lida working in the field, he is like I MUST HAVE HER. But being an arrogant Man(TM), he makes it sound like he's doing her a huuuuuge favor, which makes Lida angry and refuse him, despite much squawking from her greedy relatives, who are all blinded by the dollar signs (kronor signs?) in their eyes.
Anyway, she obviously ends up marrying him because this is a romance novel, which results in hot, slightly dubious-consent sex scenes (it was the middle ages, right? there weren't any tea videos explaining consent), loads of misunderstandings, jealousy, manly arrogance, and Lida's daughter, Katia, being super fucking adorable and precious. There's also political machinations and scheming, and all of the side characters are so great. Somehow, despite this book being just over 200 pages, the author manages to squeeze in a bit about the oppression of the Sami people, the homelife of vikings in the North and the way their communities work, and so many show-not-tell scenes that explain how both Lida and Magnus are motivated, and how who they are allows them to fall in love with one another.
I'm giving this four stars instead of the original five because the pacing did feel a little off and sometimes it felt like the book was moving a little too fast. Given the length, the author did an amazing job conveying the flow of time and making the book go by pretty quickly without being too rushed, but I do think they fell in love a little too quickly. The ending also dragged a little. After pages and pages of scheming, I was hoping for more of an explosive climax (although technically, I guess I did get the explosion I craved, hehe). It reminded me of a shorter, tamer version of Nadine Crenshaw's EDIN'S EMBRACE, which is one of my favorite viking romances of all time. The villains are scary and the marriage of convenience plot is done well. I didn't even mind the pregnancy trope too much, even though that's usually a trope that can put me off entirely.
I bought all three books in this series when they went on sale and I'm so glad I did because apparently the next book in the series is about Katia, all grown up.
P.S. The author's note at the end is worth a read. It made me tear up a little. It just goes to show that writing isn't easy for everyone, but ease has nothing on skill.
THE VIKING'S RUNAWAY CONCUBINE by this author was one of the best viking romances I've read in a while, so obviously I had to find out what happened next with my new favorite viking family. The hero of the first book is Ulfric, who fell in love with his thrall, even after she slashed his face and ran away. This book is set after the slashing, but before he brings her back, and the romance is between Ulfric's brother, Thorbrand, and a Mercian princess named Aelfwynn.
The book got off to a pretty good start. Aelfwynn is a pawn in her uncle's attempt to wrangle power. She thinks she's going off to a monastery, but the truth proves to be much darker than that when her escorts are intercepted by a band of vikings led by Thorbrand. And at first the political banter between them was totally on point, sexually charged but laced with some pretty serious observations about what it means to be a political pawn in a time of major upheaval.
And then... everything just kind of fell apart.
What I loved about the first book in this series is that Ulfric and Eithne were so obviously two halves of the same whole, and the book had such a deep and profound sexual and emotional connection between them. Here... I didn't really feel that much at all. The sex scenes weren't as good and they lacked the deep, consuming intimacy that the first book had. It was also boring. As someone else pointed out, the abduction took forever, and then it's mostly just Aelfwynn and Thorbrand making out as he takes her back to his viking settlement, until they finally do it halfway in.
I do think the author has a lot of talent and she can write some scorching sex scenes, but this is not one of her best. That said, I chatted with her on Twitter and it seems like she's planning a third book about Thorbrand and Ulfric's cousin, Leif, so I'm majorly excited about that. Crossing my fingers for more action and emotional intimacy, because I just know this author has another five-star read in her.
Mad props to my friend Meredith for pointing me towards this book. I actually don't normally read Harlequin novels, so when she said this book really dived deep into the emotional and sexual connections between the two leads, without shirking the broader historical contexts that framed their respective cultures, my ears pricked. Especially when she said that it contained some pretty intense BDSM scenes.
Really, Harlequin? I'm SHOCKED. SHOCKED, I say!
I read THE VIKING'S RUNAWAY CONCUBINE in less than twenty-four hours. Despite the cheesy cover, it is one of the most beautiful, angsty love stories I've read in a while. Eithne is an Irish woman who lived in Dublin before it was taken by vikings (I'm suspecting this is set in, like, 800 CE). To spare himself, her brother sold her as a slave, and she was picked up from the block by a man named Ulfric.
I pictured Ulfric as looking like Henry Cavill or Charlie Hunnam, but the dynamic between him and Eithne is a lot like the one between Khal Drogo and Daenerys. He's a big warrior dude with braids who was attracted to the tranquility of the girl he saw as much as he was by the defiant fire in his eyes. And rather than ill-use her, he gradually acclimated her to his preferred style of love-making, which involves ropes and canes and other things. The author really goes into the psychology of why he and Eithne do what they do and it was both fascinating and sensual.
But then Eithne slashes his face with a knife to get away, and when the story begins, Eithne is enjoying her waning days of freedom before Ulfric reclaims her as his captive once more. The story moves forward from there, with her being forced to confront her feelings about being attracted to a man who holds total and complete power over her life, and Ulfric wondering how he can be so happy and furious with her, and still feel like something is missing. The past of their relationship is woven in between these present scenes in a really masterful way that never feels like an info dump, and by the end of the story, I was fully convinced that these two were truly perfect for each other.
It's a complaint of mine that in this age of marketing books by trope and buzzwordy concepts, that a lot of the more important things like emotional connection and character development are sometimes sacrificed to get the two characters together as fast as possible. But this story didn't do that at all. I found myself tearing up at several parts, especially towards the end, and despite the unequal power dynamics and the consensual non-consent, I felt like Eithne and Ulfric really were equals-- at least, when it came to one another. I can't wait to read her other viking book. It's about the hero's brother, Thorbrand. If it's half as good as this one, I will be well pleased.
f you are a fan of Nadine Crenshaw's EDIN'S EMBRACE, I think you'll love this, too.
I've been on a bit of a viking kick lately, so I was excited to pick up SEA KING. It's the only book Jolie Mathis ever wrote, which makes me sad, because it's not bad for a debut but it also suffers some of the usual beginners' jitters, and I think it's a shame that she didn't keep up with the craft because I would have loved to read some of her later books after she'd had time to improve. But some of us only have one story in us, so if she just wanted to write the one and check the list, that's fair, too.
SEA KING is about Isabel, a Saxon princess, and Kol, a Norse warrior. When her horse throws her as a young woman, she falls into a river and nearly drowns, but the young viking saves her. As it turns out, he's on her way to the hall-- where he is promptly treated like a prisoner, and tortured. Isabel frees him, and when they reunite years later, she regrets doing so, because what does he do, but immediately sack her village, thus causing everyone to brand herself as a traitoress. Plus, her half-brother, Ranulf, has told her that the child she mysteriously bore was the result of him raping her as she slept, so she thinks he's an ignoble, rapey bastard.
As the story goes on, it starts to become clear that this might not be the case. One, because honor would have prevented it. Two, because he didn't really have time. And three, because due to a curse from his witch-mother, he believes himself to be impotent. Also, several people have cast their rapey eye on Isabel, including, maybe, her own brother. So with the paternity of her son up in dispute, and fights breaking out all over the kingdom, SEA KING starts to look and feel a lot like a medieval episode of Jerry Springer with multiple people screaming, "YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER!"
Initially, I liked this book a lot, but it quickly started to feel like a pale imitation of a viking book I enjoyed a lot more (Caitlin Crews's THE VIKING'S RUNAWAY CONCUBINE). The FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC vibe and court intrigues kept me reading, but the twist with Godric (Isabel's son)'s real parentage was weird. I hated most of the characters in this book, too, including Isabel. I felt so bad for her, but boy, was she thick. After a while, I just wanted to shake her for being such a wishy-washy character. Also, the surprise "hey, guess you're not impotent after all!" ending felt vaguely ableist? I was kind of hoping that the hero was unable to have children, because that's just so rare to see. But ofc, it was just a case of right dick, right person. Isn't that always how it goes in these romances? *eye roll*
I'd recommend this book for people who like vikings or are stuck on planes, preferably both, but that's a pretty small Venn diagram.
Okay, so Love Spell is one of those publishing imprints where their books are either good bad or bad bad. And I thought this was the later. The premise is REALLY weird. The main character, Chrissie, is at a RenFaire with her annoying coworker, Kat. Kat makes the age-old mistake of antagonizing a "gypsy woman," who sends her one thousand years into the future. To get her back, Chrissie has to go back into the PAST and secure the Holy Grail. Because you know, wibbly wobbly timey wimey.
Anyway, Chrissie goes back into the past and runs right into Robin of Lockley, AKA Robin Hood, and I really need you to know that the back blurb of the book I have refers to him and his merry men as "boyz 'n the wood." Book, your 2007 is showing. It shows its 2007 in a lot of ways, actually, because the book is narrated in first person and Chrissie is about as hip as Marci X with her references to still SUPER relevant (sarcasm) things like Baywatch or Charmed.
I will give points for Chrissie ingeniously telling Robin that she's a male eunuch to explain her height and high-pitched voice. I don't think I've ever seen that done in a time-travel book, although she keeps "OH NO he thinks I'm a boy because I'm flat-chested and my hair's in a ponytail-ing" and pride makes her want to correct him, even though being a woman in medieval times is like being the lobster dish at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You don't want to be the lobster at an all-you-can-eat buffet, is what I'm saying. I loved the title of this book but I am not keen on the execution. Next.
UPDATE: There's a hilarious ad in this book that I couldn't stop thinking about (yes, for the Zebra Big Mouth Box), and I just got confirmation on Reddit THAT IT EXISTS. You can apparently buy them on eBay.
I've been slowly working my way through my bodice-ripper collection. EDIN'S EMBRACE has been on my radar for years, but I haven't really liked most of the viking romances I've read (90% of which were written by Johanna Lindsey), so I was a little leery about picking it up. Finally, though, I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try... and I am so glad I did.
Edin is an English lady who is engaged to her childhood best friend, Cedric. She's feeling ambivalent about the nuptials, however, since she isn't really attracted to him and she's also a virgin. Unfortunately for them, they never have a chance to work it out. Vikings come and murder Cedric and a whole bunch of other people, and Edin and a lot of the people who used to be her servants are all taken as slaves.
The hero in this book is Thoryn and he is a bad-ass motherfucker. I am a sucker for icy heroes who give zero fucks, and he fits that bill to a T. He murders the heroine's fiance right in front of her-- while he's in the middle of molesting her, in fact. He attacks his own men if they defy him, and rules with an iron fist and a massive blade. The only person who actually really dares to defy him is the last person who should: Edin herself.
This book was so amazing for a variety of reasons. First, Thoryn actually walks the walk of badassery, so when he humbles himself for the heroine, it usually happens in a subtle way. He doesn't kill her for running away, even though that's the punishment for runaway slaves. He pretends to give her the illusion of consent when he finally beds her (it's forced seduction, but both of them know he could have forced himself on her violently). And Edin has a valid reason for acting the way she does. She's a sheltered noblewoman who is used to being obeyed, so she has a lot of pride, and when she's subjugated in front of the people who used to be her servants and now revel in bullying her, it hits different.
EDIN'S EMBRACE is not without the usual litany of 1980s purple prose. Her pubic reason is described as "gently mossed" and I lost it when the hero compares her blonde pubes to "yellow parsley." But the book also feels exquisitely well researched, and when there are raids or descriptions of the viking homelife, it really felt transportive. ALSO, one of the villains-- a freeman who ends up as a "cripple" and therefore shamed-- kind of ends up with a pretty sweet redemption arc, and the other villain, the hero's mother, Inga, is 100% pure grade A batshit crazy. We're talking Mommie Dearest/Flowers in the Attic levels of crazy. And the way the author foreshadows her madness and drags it out-- GOLD.
Sadly, this book, like all of her others, appear to be out of print. I hope it gets rereleased, though, because it's really fun and the romance is so meaningful and emotional and fraught, and I actually loved the heroine just as much as I loved the hero. I can't wait to read more of her books!
WILDSONG is a medieval romance set in Ireland that I picked up impulsively at a thrift shop. As far medieval romances go, it's pretty tame. There's some talk about what dickheads the English are, but the focus of the story is on the romance between the Irish Ceara and Sir Brian, the English knight who has been given an Irish castle to manage. Manage probably isn't the right word, but basically, if the king was the CEO of the United Kingdom, I feel like the knights and lords in his favor basically ended up being general managers of the lands he gave them.
Anyway, the hero and the heroine meet when he sees her playing her harp in the woods one night. And he's like HAWT. And then they kiss. There's several more encounters like that, despite the statutes of Kilkenny, which basically say, "No listening to Irish music, no fucking Irish chicks, etc." Sir Brian doesn't care for your rules, ENGLAND.
I liked this romance, okay? It's cute and sweet, and yeah, not very historically accurate. Everyone's clean and there's no breath of plague and the cruelest thing one of the English dudes does is try to force himself on Ceara like a drunken frat boy, but that is resolved with no consequence. Maybe I've been reading too many old skool bodice-rippers, but I kept bracing for some sort of grand villain finale. Even the thing with the OM, Padraig, Ceara's ex-fiancee, felt anticlimactic.
I'd recommend this to people who like the vibes of medieval romance but not the realism. If you want the Medieval Times/Disney version of a medieval romance, this is your jam. Very little violence, no OW drama, a cute secondary romance, and pretty tepid acts of villainy. Also, it has a beautiful stepback, which I'll be sharing to Instagram later. It's the H and the h in a moonlit glade!
For my birthday last year, my mom got me a ton of time travel romances and I have barely made a dent in them. A ONCE AND FUTURE LOVE was one of the books that was in the box she gave me. Despite the cheesy title and the even cheesier cover, it's somewhat unique among its time travel brethren because in this case, it's the dude going back in time.
Richard is a father and a grandfather with a dad bod and a lot of grief. He's currently on a trip in England-- a trip he should have taken with his wife, before she died. Now he's flying solo, looking into the very lands that his ancestor, a land-holding knight named Richard de Lambert, used to hold in the days of King John and the Crusades. While climbing a tower in some old castle ruins, he thinks about how much he wants to be with his wife, before taking a mean tumble. And then POOF.
When he wakes up, he's in the prime of his life. No more dad bod. He's ripped, my dudes. Also everyone around him is speaking scary Medieval French. That's because he's in Normandy. Also, his ancestor was a dick. We get a taste of his personality in the prologue-- he was mean to children, abused his wife, and liked killing people in battles. Especially (but not necessarily) if they were Welsh. So naturally, he winds up with an arrow in his throat. And naturally, Richard's soul casually fills up that body like it's a free drink refill at the Costco food court.
This book kind of reminded me of OUTLANDER and AWAKEN, MY LOVE, only shorter and way less focused on the "whys" of the time travel. Richard gets over the fact that it might be a dream pretty quickly because he's practical like that (he's a lawyer) and immediately starts trying to figure out the language and the customs. It doesn't hurt that Douchebag Richard's wife, Eleanor, is a deadringer for his own Lucy. Which is kind of weird, when you think about it. I'm pretty sure Richard just became his own grandfather and if she looks just like Lucy, maybe his wife was also his great-great-great-great incest wife or whatever. Yikes. This is taking a TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE turn.
So I ended up liking this book. The writing was great, the research was good (I think), and the romance between Robert and Eleanor was kind of sweet if you didn't think too deeply on it-- except for one thing, which I'll get to later. There's even a secondary romance between Eleanor's half-brother, Hugh, and one of the Welsh girls... and he really does act like a lovesick teen. It's pretty funny. The only thing I didn't like was the end, even though it was realistic. Eleanor starts telling EVERYONE that Richard must be possessed by demons and this bad dude who wants to rape Eleanor and steal Richard's land is like "Haha! A plan!" So because of Eleanor, Richard is dragged off to a "He might be a witch" trial, where it's determined that he must prove his innocence in trial by combat.
IDK, maybe it's realistic that a change in personality like that = demons, but it was annoying AF to see Eleanor whining and crying about how her husband was too nice now and must be a demon. Maybe this is to show how damaged she is from Douchebag Richard's abuse, that she can't take a good thing at face value, but the psychology behind that wasn't really explored fully and Richard is just kind of w/e about it. Never mind the fact that he was nearly killed by the woman wearing the face of the love of his life. I think this could have worked if there were more emotional depth, but because it wasn't, it just ended up kind of making the heroine look like a two-faced bitch and Richard like a pushover.
Anything for some last-act drama, I guess.
Anyway, this was a fun quick read and apart from those annoyances, it was mostly a checklist of everything I like in "fluffier" medieval fiction. It's not a fave and I probably wouldn't reread but I enjoyed the ride and I think several of my friends would probably enjoy it.
Upcoming read by a PAINFULLY UNDERRATED author. Malia Martin wrote one of my all-time favorite medieval romances and I'm looking forward to this seemiUpcoming read by a PAINFULLY UNDERRATED author. Malia Martin wrote one of my all-time favorite medieval romances and I'm looking forward to this seemingly Shakespeare-inspired one.
I think this is the third Elisabeth Hobbes medieval romance I've read. It was okay. A little mid. FALLING FOR HER CAPTOR starts out pretty well: the heroine is the sole heir to this big tract of land called the Five Territories, and she has to get married so her grandfather can have the security of knowing who is heirs will be amidst all these feuding lords.
But then, girlfriend gets herself kidnapped.
And her kidnapper decides to garnish his wages with a little rape.
...Until he is hauled off her and murdered by yet another kidnapper, a man with piercing blue eyes who wears all black.
This man is Hugh, cousin to the evil and sadistic Duke, Stephen, who ordered her kidnapping to force her to marry him and take all that sweet, sweet land for himself. It's hinted that Stephen suffered a blow to his prefrontal cortex, which impaired his judgment and emotional regulation, but since it's a medieval romance, they just say "he fell on his head and wasn't right." Must be all those demons that need expunging.
Anyway, suddenly Aline is trapped in this Duke's castle, while he gloats over all the things he's going to do to her as soon as her grandfather signs the papers. And to make matters worse, he knows that Hugh's attracted to her, and she to him, and he takes no shortage of joy in informing her what the punishment for adultery is, which he will absolutely enforce (dude gets blinded and castrated, girl gets a branding iron to the face). Gee, ISN'T MEDIEVAL TIMES FUN, YOU GUYS?
As with the last two books I read, I thought there was a good story under all of this drama. The author is a decent writer, and parts of this book felt like they were hearkening to the bodice-rippers of yore, except Stephen would be the psychotic hero in the 1980s and now he's just the guy who showboats until you hate him enough that you cheer when the hero stabs him to death with a sword. This book had two problems, though: (1) Aline's inconsistent characterization. At first I really liked her. She seemed reasonable and smart. I thought it was cool that she stopped the hero from getting attacked by a wolf with a bow and arrow, channeling her inner Merida. But then she starts acting really stupid. Believing the demonstrably psychotic guy's lies about the guy you like? WHY would you do that? Even Hugh is like, SERIOUSLY? And I'm with him: SERIOUSLY?! It felt like the plot was driving Aline's actions, rather than vice-versa. And (2) this book felt way too long. About one hundred pages too long, actually. A lot of Harlequin novels are at or just under 200 pages and this was like 275. I felt every one of those 275 pages towards the end. The page count felt really dragged out, as did the conclusion.
FALLING FOR HER CAPTOR is a relatively quick and easy read, and falls somewhere in the middle on the How Realistically Awful Is This Portrayal of Medieval Times, where 1 is a Disney movie and 10 is Katherine Deauxville's BLOOD RED ROSES. The heroine might not be wading her way through pillages and plague, but it's clear there are real stakes here, and I appreciated that.
I'm kind of on a Tudor kick and I had no idea I had so many of these books just lying around! Don't you love it when you're in the mood for a specificI'm kind of on a Tudor kick and I had no idea I had so many of these books just lying around! Don't you love it when you're in the mood for a specific type of book and find out you have a ton of them already?...more
I bought several books from this author a while ago and recently read THE UNFAITHFUL QUEEN. It was really good! Packed full of drama, cattiness, and court intrigue-- just the way Tudor fiction should be, I think you'll agree. The last book was about Catherine Howard, who King Henry VIII had executed for adultery. This book was about Jane Seymour, the mother of Edward, who died from complications in childbirth. One of the "lucky" wives Henry VIII didn't kill.
The book opens with Catherine of Aragon being married to Henry VIII. Catherine has just had another miscarriage and Henry VIII is furious because he has no male heirs. Jane is one of Catherine's handmaidens and disapproves of the flirtations between Anne Boleyn and Catherine because she is loyal to her queen. Unlike UNFAITHFUL, where the bulk of the book is about Catherine's relationship to Henry, most of Jane's narrative is that of a passive observer as she serves as handmaiden to Catherine and then, later, to Anne throughout her rise and fall as the harlot queen.
A lot of people seem to dislike these books for some reason. Maybe because they're heavy on the drama? I actually like that about the book because it brings back warm memories of my fond Philippa Gregory obsession from the aughts. The only thing that kind of put me off this one a little is the introduction of supernatural elements. There's this nun who hates Anne and starts prophesying these biblical curses that end up coming true and then she gives birth to a stillborn demon baby. What. The crazy in this one is over the top and I enjoyed it, even though it made me roll my eyes a little.
If you enjoy light and breezy historical fiction that's heavy on the drama and maybe plays with the facts a little for sensationalism, you'll probably really enjoy these books! I breezed through them and plan on checking out more from this author soon.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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Books:
medieval-renaissance
(82)
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