The Maiden's Heart is a Medieval romance with quite a religious bent. The heroine is devoutly religious, and much of the plot involves Church politics. This gives the book a lot of authenticity, especially as the presence of religion in medieval life is sometimes ignored in romance. Although the heroine gets to be a little much at times, the interesting conflict, likable secondary characters, and accurately depicted setting make for a fairly good read.

The book is told as if it were an illuminated manuscript written by one of the secondary characters - who happens to be a monk. Every now and then he pops in to make a point, usually at the beginning of a chapter. The tale is of a knight errant, Sir Hugh de Greyhurst, who is tiring of the jousting life and decides to search for a wife. He quickly hears of Margrete Trewsbury. Her father Giles is close to death, and she needs to take a husband before the king chooses one for her. Margrete is stunningly beautiful and comes with a barony to boot. It's a little run down, but it looks pretty good to a knight without land of his own. Margrete meets the handsome Hugh and agrees to the marriage on one condition - it must be a "spiritual marriage," one in which both parties remain celibate. Margrete has always wanted to be a nun, and though she must obey her father she wants to remain as pure and godly as possible. Hugh is not entirely certain he can resist the beautiful Margrete. But she begs him to stay, and he is lured by her goodness - and her land.

Hugh and Margrete have every intention of keeping their vows of celibacy. But they immediately come under attack from church officials, who see the vow as unnatural and subversive. Then Hugh's old enemy hears of the unusual marriage and hatches a scheme to take Margrete and the barony for himself. But the most serious challenge to the vow comes from Hugh and Margrete themselves. As they fall deeper in love, consummation of their marriage becomes harder and harder to resist.

There are quite a few religious officials running around, and I confess that I sometimes lost track of who was who. What I liked about them was that they seemed human. There were some "bad guys" among them, but most seemed like devoted people trying to live their religion, even if they couldn't all agree on the best way to do so. The religious subtext provided an interesting background for the conflict between the main characters, and added to the realism of the setting. Fans of authenticity in Medievals won't be disappointed with this one.

This probably sounds like a very weighty book, but it's actually quite humorous much of the time. While the hero and heroine were both pretty earnest individuals, the secondary characters provided a lot of comic relief. My favorite was an ancient knight who was a faithful friend to Margrete's father Giles. He had one foot in the grave and one hand on a tankard of ale, but kept proving himself useful anyway.

I liked the main characters also, especially Hugh. He was a brave, noble hero who had had a hard life but was trying to live up to Margrete's ideals. He did hope to change her mind about the vow of celibacy, but he refused to force her to abandon it by either rape or seduction. He wanted her only if she freely chose to relinquish her vow. Margrete was interesting, but harder to take at times. Her devotion was utterly sincere, but it seemed selfish to me. I had trouble believing that it was godly to deny her husband an heir or her father grandchildren. Still, I was willing to be patient with her, since I knew she would change her mind eventually.

The only other thing that bothered me was that one of the secondary characters was cross-eyed and kept bumping into walls. At one point she set the curtains on fire. As someone who was cross-eyed as a child and managed to walk as normally as the next person, I found this vaguely offensive.

If you are bothered by the presence of religion in romance, then this probably isn't the book for you. Otherwise, I encourage you to give it a try, particularly if you are a Medieval fan looking for something a little out of the ordinary.