Search - Almost Innocent

And this book pretty much exemplifies that. Like the others I've read from Feather, there's much more than fluff involved. The characters are clearly at home in the setting she's chosen for them and they act as one would act in the circumstances and time period and not how one would act today. And you have to love a romance novel that's more than just sexual tension and consummation. This one had a good story, and that's what more of Feather's contemporaries need to learn.
I'm always impressed at how her heroes are less than the perfect ideal compared to the standard, and Guy is no exception. Though there are times you want to strangle him for not being typical ultimately it enriches the story. Magdelen is as what's to be expected for the genre, a woman vs her lot in life, but she doesn't have that selfish nature that's so exasperating in other heroines, like the modern 90s woman trapped in some nightmare. Like Guy she ultimately does what's right for herself, her child and her country, even with the personal sacrifice, and that's what makes this story believable and the culmination is better for it. Nobody's perfect, and Jane Feather doesn't try and pretend otherwise.

The secondary characters, as always, are as interesting as the main characters, and no one writes a more wicked villan than Jane Feather.

Add to all this the fact that Feather has clearly done her research in respect to the medieval world and you have a romance novel that's less romance and more escapist.