It seems like there are fewer and fewer good medievals, so I opened Return of the Warrior with fingers crossed. Although it wasn’t exactly original, with its wounded hero with a group of nicknamed friends (it’s part of MacGregor’s Brotherhood of the Sword series), it was fairly rewarding. The biggest problem I could see what…
For Camelot’s Honor is the second book in a series featuring brothers from King Arthur’s court. Although the novel is a bit predictable and mundane in the beginning, soon enough it becomes an emotionally packed and suspenseful book that is well worth the read. As the daughter of a Welsh chieftain, Elen leads a rather…
I had a very hard time deciding what grade to give Tina St. John’s Heart of the Flame. It’s a pleasant read, smoothly told and nicely written, and I can’t really say there’s anything I disliked about it. But while it was nice enough, it had a number of flaws that kept it from being…
The Lady Doth Protest seems to be loosely based on Lysistrata, a play where the women of Athens barricade themselves in the Acropolis and refuse to let the men have sex with them until they make peace with Sparta. Only Klassel’s humor is a bit broader than Aristophanes’. Lady Margaret de Languetot, called Megge by…
Blythe: Linda, Tina St. John’s been writing for years, and her first three books were DIK’d by AAR. In a way, it’s kind of surprising that I’d never read her before, but Heart of the Flame is the first of hers that I’ve tried. I think part of the reason is that I’m not the…
Unquestionably, the author’s Roselynde Chronicles are considered a classic in the genre and are well-loved by many readers. Though the story of Alinor, Simon, and those who came after them already seemed complete, when Gellis wrote a new novel set during the gap in time between Roselynde and Alinor, I was curious to try it….
Jocelyn Kelley is a new pseudonym for an author who has written under several names and across several genres, most recently as JoAnn Ferguson writing Traditional Regencies and Regency-set mysteries. This time around, she has chosen a particularly interesting moment in Medieval history: the final confrontation between King Henry II and Thomas à Becket, Archbishop…
I haven’t read a book by Claire Delacroix in several years, which is odd since I very much enjoyed some of her Harlequin Historicals. The Beauty Bride isn’t as different and original as some of her Harlequins, but it was a good way to rediscover an old favorite. Lady Madeline of Kinfairlie has refused to…
Watch out, Bertrice and Virginia: There’s a new girl in town! With prose so purple I noticed a lavender tinge suffusing my hands as I held the book, Across a Wild Sea features a perfectly beautiful, perfectly sweet, perfectly spirited, perfectly nauseating heroine and a standard-issue (well, in the 1980s, anyway) “dark and tormented” hero…
An author faces a great challenge in writing historical romances featuring actual historical figures. When the author isn’t up to meeting that challenge, historical figures can be reduced to one-dimensional props or they can just as easily go too far in the other direction and end up overshadowing the fictional protagonists of the story. In…
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