Review: Season of the raven is great
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 23, 2014
A MILLER FOUND UNDER HIS WHEELIt’s 1194 and Sir Faucon de Ramis, the shire’s newly appointed Keeper of the Pleas, must do his duty and make an official declaration of the cause of a miller’s death.Saddled with a clerk who names Faucon his ‘penance, the shire’s first Crowner must thread the tangled relationships between the sheriff, the village of Priors Holston and the priory that once ruled it. As a simple task takes a turn to the political, what seems obvious isn’t and what appears safe turns out to be more dangerous than he could imagineIt really hurts me to give this book only a four because it is such a delight to read. But i would be remiss if I scored it higher. I am a demanding reader. Authors expect us to pay money for their books. Therefore I think they owe us perfection. Domning comes pretty close.It is a compelling story from the very beginning. I found myself wanting to know motives immediately. What was driving these people? Well, having met Rannulf previously I already knew that he could not bear to be separated from his beloved wife. More power to him. May more men feel that way.All of the characters are well developed, even the most minor. There is some interesting tidbit about each one. Even ones I think I would dislike forever turn out to have redeeming features. Ones whose side I thought I would be on turn out to have dark sides. One walks off and I really hope that one comes back.Domning does her research. I really appreciate that in a writer of historical fiction. My own academic training is in the history of the pre-Reformation period. I once read a novel set in the 1950s. I think I read this book in the late 80s. I have long since forgotten the name of the author or the novel but she had her heroine sauntering in JFK airport. While this may disclose my age to the discerning reader, this detail incensed me. For one thing, memorial names are not given to something during a person's lifetime and for another, in the 1950s that airport was known as Idlewild Airport. So in a story set in the 1950s to call the airport JK is an historical anachronism.I mention all this because Domning is guilty of an anachronism and I don't forgive those in historical fiction. She mentions a capuchin on page 2 or 3. They did not exist in 1194. It did not exist until Matteo De Bascio invented it in the sixteenth century. [...]Had she not made this one mistake, I would have so given this book a 5. I really wanted to. Bit all my teachers always graded me down for my mistakes.