Review: Good plot, too much sex.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 6, 2014
I like historical novels.  This story had an excellent underlying plot about hiding the treasure of Glastonbury Abbey. a Catholic Church caught in the reformation of England in 1539.  The abbot of Glastonbury, knowing he would probably be murdered once the Protestants broke in, was determined to hide the most valuable articles of the Church, especially having to do with Jesus, until such time as they could be sent to the pope.  He packed them up and entrusted them into the care of a ten year old orphan boy sent to the Dulac family of whom the matriarch grandmother would claim him as the son of her deceased son and called him William Dulac. The abbot burdened him with hiding the treasures, but with letters, also to be hidden, revealing their whereabouts to whomsoever occupied the Dulac estate.  William married, had children and the treasures remained hidden.  This is the crux of this plot.The story next opens in the late 1800’s with Lady Rowena, 26 years old, searching for the letters and the treasure.  She has had a disastrous sexual experience with a man, Dalworth, to whom her brother pledged her in marriage.  Dalworth is violent and accosts her prior to their marriage and her Aunt rescues her.  The first third of the book is intriguing because it is dedicated to hiding the treasure and the clues.Lady Rowena is beautiful, but sexually afraid because of Dalworth.  Lord Harry, a handsome man about thirty years old, meets her and immediately falls in love with her.  Then the story becomes more engrossed with how Rowena and Harry feel about each other and just occasionally returns to the matter of the treasure.  Too much of the rest of the story is involved in continual repetitious descriptions of the sexual scenes , a couple being quite explicit, which became totally boring to me,  and caused the story to lag.  Finally it returns to the hunt for the treasure and much action with Harry gathering his friends to help guard Rowena and her Aunt and the treasure from Dalworth and his men.Part of what makes the tale interesting is that the author introduced information, that some might consider myths, about the background of the treasures and Christianity.  The characters were well described although towards the end of the story, there were so many new names, it was hard to keep track of them and added nothing to the action.  They could have been lumped together.I am inclined to only give three stars because of the overwhelming sexual scenes that slowed the story so much, but because of the prologue, mystery and well developed action scenes, I am giving it four stars.  I think the problem here is that this is a first time author and I would suggest that in her following books, she realizes that she must always use new descriptions for the same scenes in order that her story won’t lag.  This is part of good editing.  For the most part, I enjoyed the story.