Review: Delightful Medieval Love Story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 15, 2013
I didn't have high hopes for this for some reason, but I was delighted with the story.  The heroine, Kate, is very sheltered and bogged down by unrealistic views of romance from her past mother-in-law and also horrendous views of sex from the same source.  She's grown up without her mother or any apparent female guidance and had relied on the warped views of her 1st husband's mother.  Rather embarrassed to say I don't remember what happened to Kate's mother - she may have died in childbirth.  The morals of the time are odd compared to ours now and the author does a fine job with this.  The dialogue rings very true with a great deal of consistency for dialogue common to the day, as such sometimes I found myself having to stop and think through certain passages - it was momentary and rather than detracting help build dimension to the era in which the story takes place.In this story we find the hero, Rafe, falling in love with Kate at 1st kiss, which for a rake of the times is a bit far-fetched, but that's almost a requirement of romance novels, so I wave that objection aside and delved into the rest of the story. The intrigue and manuverings of the various characters was very interesting and really added to my pleasure in the story as it unraveled.Apparently there are 2 more books in this series; however, the author goes into some depth with Rafe and Kate's friends to the degree that I would expect a much larger series.  It was actually the one negative I had with the tale that too much time was spent decribing in detail Rafe's friends.  The author succeeded in thoroughly capturing my curiousity in resolving the conflicts in the later half of the book to the degree that after having gotten close to the end while getting my hair done, I didn't want to wait to drive home and read it later and instead sat in my car for about 30 minutes while I finished it.I will be looking for more of this author's work based on my enjoyment in the tale she wove here.