Shadow on the Crown: A Novel
The first volume of a trilogy, Shadow on the Crown is the story of Emma, queen consort to the eleventh-century English king Aethelred II. A Norman in a loveless marriage of alliance, Emma is a spirited, clever 15-year-old who earns the love of her new subjects as well as that of Athelstan, eldest son of Aethelred. Emma returns that love, but will her sworn duty to her odious husband destroy the forbidden romance between queen and aetheling (prince)? And does love really belong to some other world, as Emma muses? In addition to the fraught love story, the novel examines the ongoing conflict between Aethelred’s forces and those of Swein Forkbeard, the canny, self-styled king of the Danes. Based in part on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Bracewell’s sweeping first novel is richly researched and creates a fully realized eleventh-century world of violence, power, intrigue, and superstition. Lovers of historical romance will be pleased. --Michael Cart