Review: Glad I stuck with it
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 5, 2013
This book took me a while to get into.  I am not unaccustomed to period pieces where there are names that seem odd to what I am used to, but the names and the writing style seemed to take me a bit longer than normal to get into for some reason.  Having said that, I am so glad that I didn't give up on this one as it turned out to be one of those types of books that I couldn't put down.  The character development and descriptions of the land and individuals were very well done.  Even the "bad guys" were people I began to like and wish well.  This was not a short book, and yet I found myself wishing it was longer so the stories of the other characters could be fleshed out, too.  In spite of that wish, I was thankful that the story was told only from the vantage point of the one character and stayed with her throughout.  There was so much going on that any jumping around would have been distracting.  I'm hoping the sequels fill in a bit more about what happens to the Lady who was left behind.Given how much I liked this book, I must also note that while I don't consider myself a prude, there are intimate scenes about 3/4 of the way through the book that got much more detailed than I felt was necessary.  It went from being a book I would gladly hand over to my daughter to one I would not just because of those scenes.  So much so that I considered dropping my rating to a "3" (but didn't simply because the rest of the book was so well done).  For folks like me, that's important to know since my teens are voracious readers and I don't screen what they read anymore.