Review: Good Historical Novel and Entertaining Read
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 23, 2012
I really enjoyed this book, while at times I had to suspend belief a bit in terms of finding the heroine to be the same as as the romance figure "Yseult" from the poetry I had no trouble at all enjoying and accepting a 5th/6th century Irish warrior Princess.  There were plenty of them in Ireland during the Iron Age and I was delighted to see an author portray that property, just had a hard time accepting it as one in the same with the heroine of the book title.But over-all, I found this book well researched and a refreshing read; I especially enjoyed the alternative (but historically documented) version of Aurthur himself; there are lots of stories centered around "Arthur" and it can get really boring sometimes when author's either just repeat the Mallory version and/or try so hard to be historically "accurate" they lose the plot.While a very different version than Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer-Bradly) or the same tale retold as a side story (in the same Universe) as The White Raven (by Diana Paxon) previous comparisons to the writing style are accurate and that is a compliment.  In the interests of fairness I am a friend of Diana Paxson (she introduced me to my husband) and also know that she actually wrote most of the sequels to Mists of Avalon (after Marion's health declined); so I am well familiar with the back stories on all these books.And while I adore White Raven, I also really like the very different interpretation of the main characters in Yseult and was very happy with the ending as well.I am very much looking forward to reading the sequel which I now have and will recommend these books to friends (including Diana Paxson,who enjoys reading other versions of the tales she retells, her re-telling of the Ring Cycle is how I met my husband who also wrote one).Others have noted that this is more of a historical novel than a historical romance; which is just fine with me as I prefer more in-depth immersion into the time period and less heavy breathing when it comes to good story telling.  There's plenty of romance in this book, but it is the sort of old-fashioned "romance" that both the Tristan and Yseult Story and the German Ring Cycle are traditional examples of.I look forward to reading more historical novels by the this author in the future and hope she investigates more of the Arthurian "side" stories...there are a lot of them out there.