4 member(s) found this review helpful.
"Be careful what you wish for, you might get it" is an old truism, as apt for today's reader as it was for a hero of the Norman Conquest. Sir Drogo de Toulon was one of the invader William's mighty war machines. Eada of Pevensey was a young Saxon woman who had been widowed on her wedding night, leaving her still a maiden.
Drogo has fought for William in the hope of gaining lands and wealth, yet when it is offered, he discovers that without Eada as part of the package, there is no worth in it. Eada has inherited from the village witch-woman the ability of hearing and seeing portents of the future. The last prediction made by Old Edith before her death was that Eada's 'mate' would be among the invading Normans. Mayhap there will be even more.
Set against the brutal battles and invasion of the Conquest, the characters in this wonderful book will stay in your heart for a long time. The secondary characters are no less pervasive; you'll especially be enamored of Ivo and May, another Norman/Saxon pair who turn Drogo's war camp into a traveling orphanage. Even though they acquire fourteen kids of various ages, along the way into London, neither of them speak the other's language!
Sensibility, humor, sensuality, panorama, plot, intelligence, romance. All this and wonderfully lifelike characters combine to make this a reader's delight. It'll be yours, too.
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
A bloody tale of Norman conquest over the Saxon's circa 1066, England. A young lady inherits 'the sight' when a loved one dies, and finds her mate amongst the conquerers.
Not written "accented" as is Howell's norm, so may be easier to read for those who find her writing in dialect a distraction.
350 pages. Yummy cover. ;)
2 member(s) found this review helpful.
Good plot, set as the Battle of Hastings is about to be fought. Norman invader, Saxon heroine. Some intrigue, lots of battle grit and great characters. Tension and sex appeal..