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reviews December 22, 2015

In the Shadow of the Storm by Anna Belfrage

02_In the Shadow of the StormIn the Shadow of the Storm (The King’s Greatest Enemy 1) by Anna Belfrage

Adam de Guirande owes his lord, Sir Roger Mortimer, much more than loyalty. He owes Sir Roger for his life and all his worldly good, he owes him for his beautiful wife ñ even if Kit is not quite the woman Sir Roger thinks she is. So when Sir Roger rises in rebellion against the king, Adam has no choice but to ride with him ñ no matter what the ultimate cost may be.

England in 1321 is a confusing place. Edward II has been forced by his barons to exile his favourite, Hugh Despenser. The barons, led by the powerful Thomas of Lancaster, Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun, have reasons to believe they have finally tamed the king. But Edward is not about to take things lying down, and fate is a fickle mistress, favouring first one, then the other.

Adam fears his lord has over-reached, but at present Adam has other matters to concern him, first and foremost his new wife, Katherine de Monmouth. His bride comes surrounded by rumours concerning her and the baron, and he hates it when his brother snickers and whispers of used goods.

Kit de Courcy has the misfortune of being a perfect double of Katherine de Monmouth ñ which is why she finds herself coerced into wedding a man under a false name. What will Adam do when he finds out he has been duped?

Domestic matters become irrelevant when the king sets out to punish his rebellious barons. The Welsh Marches explode into war, and soon Sir Roger and his men are fighting for their very lives. When hope splutters and dies, when death seems inevitable, it falls to Kit to save her man ñ if she can.

In the Shadow of the Storm is the first in Anna Belfrageís new series, The Kingís Greatest Enemy, the story of a man torn apart by his loyalties to his baron, his king, and his wife.

As much as I loved the Graham saga, I started this book a bit cautiously. I’m not a huge fan of Mortimer but I have a soft spot for Edward II, and little bit for Despenser, and I knew they wouldn’t be showed here in a good light. But I trusted Belfrage to make it enjoyable nevertheless and I was right.

I liked both Kit and Adam and loved seeing how their relationship grew. With that kind of start to the marriage it could have gone terribly wrong. She was brave, not afraid to say what she wanted and ready to fight for what she wanted.

I didn’t really warm up to Mortimer and while I understand you’re loyal to a man who’s practically your foster father, I didn’t understand why he was so blindingly loyal. I’m curious to see how he feels about future events, especially since he’s so fond of Lady Joan…

I couldn’t help but feel that Despenser was little too evil here but yeah… I did mention about my soft spot for him so…

The book started bit slow but after events started picking up there wasn’t a dull moment. All in all I really liked this and I’m waiting for the next book.

4/5

Published: SilverWood Books (November 1, 2015)
Format: ebook
Pages: 396
Source: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Series Graphic

About the Author03_Annna_Belfrage 2015

Had Anna been allowed to choose, sheíd have become a professional time-traveller. As such a profession does as yet not exists, she settled for second best and became a financial professional with two absorbing interests, namely history and writing. These days, Anna combines an exciting day-job with a large family and her writing endeavours.

When Anna fell in love with her future husband, she got Scotland as an extra, not because her husband is Scottish or has a predilection for kilts, but because his family fled Scotland due to religious persecution in the 17th century ñ and were related to the Stuarts. For a history buff like Anna, these little details made Future Husband all the more desirable, and sparked a permanent interest in the Scottish Covenanters, which is how Matthew Graham, protagonist of the acclaimed The Graham Saga, began to take shape.

Set in 17th century Scotland and Virginia/Maryland, the series tells the story of Matthew and Alex, two people who should never have met ñ not when she was born three hundred years after him. With this heady blend of romance, adventure, high drama and historical accuracy, Anna hopes to entertain and captivate, and is more than thrilled when readers tell her just how much they love her books and her characters.

Presently, Anna is hard at work with her next project, a series set in the 1320s featuring Adam de Guirande, his wife Kit, and their adventures and misfortunes in connection with Roger Mortimerís rise to power. The Kingís Greatest Enemy is a series where passion and drama play out against a complex political situation, where todayís traitor may be tomorrowís hero, and the Wheel of Life never stops rolling.

The first installment in the Adam and Kit story, In the Shadow of the Storm, will be published in the autumn of 2015.

Other than on her website, www.annabelfrage.com, Anna can mostly be found on her blog, http://annabelfrage.wordpress.com ñ unless, of course, she is submerged in writing her next novel.

Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, December 1
Review at I’m Shelfish
Review at Let Them Read Books
Spotlight at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, December 2
Review at Beth’s Book Book
Review & Interview at Bookish

Thursday, December 3
Review at So Many Books, So Little Time

Friday, December 4
Review at Singing Librarian Books
Spotlight at Historical Fiction Connection

Sunday, December 6
Review at A Bibliotaph’s Reviews

Monday, December 7
Review at One Book Shy of a Full Shelf

Tuesday, December 8
Review at Book Nerd
Guest Post at One Book Shy of a Full Shelf

Wednesday, December 9
Review at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, December 10
Review at Book Drunkard
Review at Impressions in Ink
Interview at Flashlight Commentary

Friday, December 11
Spotlight at The Never-Ending Book

Monday, December 14
Review at Unshelfish
Review at CelticLady’s Reviews
Guest Post at To Read, Or Not to Read

Tuesday, December 15
Review at A Chick Who Reads
Review at Historical Fiction Notebook

Wednesday, December 16
Review at Room with Books
Review at Griperang’s Bookmarks

Thursday, December 17
Review at Just One More Chapter
Review at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Friday, December 18
Interview at Just One More Chapter
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Monday, December 21
Review at Puddletown Reviews
Review at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book

Tuesday, December 22
Review at Bookramblings
Review at Broken Teepee

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reviews December 18, 2015

Blood Rose Angel by Liza Perrat

Blood Rose Angel

Blood Rose Angel by Liza PERRAT

1348. A bone-sculpted angel and the woman who wears it – heretic, Devilís servant, saint.
Midwife Héloïse has always known that her bastard status threatens her standing in the French village of Lucie-sur-Vionne. Yet her midwifery and healing skills have gained the peopleís respect, and she has won the heart of the handsome Raoul Stonemason. The future looks hopeful. Until the Black Death sweeps into France.
Fearful that Héloïse will bring the pestilence into their cottage, Raoul forbids her to treat its victims. Amidst the grief and hysteria, the villagers searching for a scapegoat, Héloïse must choose: preserve her marriage, or honor the oath she swore on her dead motherís soul? And even as she places her faith in the protective powers of her angel talisman, she must prove sheís no Devilís      servant, her talisman no evil charm.

I haven’t read the previous books but this works well as a stand-alone. I don’t think I’ve read anything set during the Black Death from the common people’s point of view so this was a change for me.

You can see how much superstitions affects everyday life, especially when something bad happens. Makes people accuse everyone from Jews to lepers and cats. How important midwives were to women during the dangerous time of childbirth, and yet how easy it was to accuse them of witchcraft, curses and heresy. Definitely not a safe occupation…

Héloïse can’t turn her back to the people affected by the plague but her husband doesn’t approve her work. I’m trying not to give anything away but I think he went way too far trying to prevent her from helping and I hoped Héloïse wouldn’t have forgiven him. I liked Raoul before that but after that I just couldn’t but hate him. Not an easy time to be a woman for sure.

I liked Héloïse who was strong and kind even after all the hate she’s gotten from the villagers. She didn’t give up trying to find a solution to defeat the plague.

4/5

Published: Liza Perrat (November 14, 2015)
Format: ebook
Pages: 349
Source: France Book Tours

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liza Perrat 2Liza Perrat grew up in Wollongong, Australia,
where she worked as a general nurse and midwife for fifteen years.
When she met her French husband on a Bangkok bus,
she moved to France, where she has been living
with her husband and three children for twenty years.
She works part-time as a French-English medical translator,
and as a novelist.
Since completing a creative writing course twelve years ago,
several of her short stories have won awards,
notably the Writers Bureau annual competition of 2004
and her stories have been published widely in anthologies and small press magazines.
Her articles on French culture and tradition have been published in international magazines
such as France Magazine, France Today and The Good Life France.
Spirit of Lost Angels is the first in her French historical trilogy, The Bone Angel Series.
The second ñ Wolfsangel ñ was published in October, 2013,
and the third, Blood Rose Angel, is published in November, 2015.
She is a founding member of the author collective, Triskele Books and reviews books for BookMuse.

***

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***

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reviews October 17, 2015

1066: What Fates Impose by G.K. Holloway

10661066: What Fates Impose by G.K. Holloway

King William then utters the following words to the room: ‘I appoint no one as my heir to the Crown of England, but leave it to the disposal of the Eternal Creator, whose I am and who orders all things. For I did not attain that high honour by hereditary right, but wrested it from the perjured King Harold in a desperate bloody battle.’

England is in crisis. King Edward has no heir and promises never to produce one. There are no obvious successors available to replace him, but quite a few claimants are eager to take the crown. While power struggles break out between the various factions at court, enemies abroad plot to make England their own. There are raids across the borders with Wales and Scotland.

Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, is seen by many as the one man who can bring stability to the kingdom. He has powerful friends and two women who love him, but he has enemies will stop at nothing to gain power. As 1066 begins, England heads for an uncertain future. It seems even the heavens are against Harold.

Intelligent and courageous, can Harold forge his own destiny – or does he have to bow to what fates impose? (Goodreads)

The book follows the events up to the Battle of Hastings and The Conquest. It’s told from third person narrative with huge cast of characters. Luckily for me I’ve read from the period before but there is list of characters in the beginning of the book. Which for me is useless when reading ebooks but maybe that’s just me. Anyway…

Although I found some trouble connecting with the characters, I did feel sympathy for Harold. I don’t know if William the Conqueror was as evil as portrayed here but I really hoped someone would kill him and the other Normans. Harold is likeable character who is intelligent and honorable while William is sometimes cruel, brutal and then at times like a whiny, spoiled brat. Made you root for Harold even more.

There’s politics, brutal fights and nothing is sugarcoated. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to live in those times. The book gives good idea of the complicated political climate of the time and how it led to the Battle of Hastings.

4/5

Published: Matador (March 4, 2013)
Format: eBook
Pages: 456
Source: from author for review

reviews July 9, 2015

Odin’s Child by Bruce Macbain

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Odin’s Child (Odd Tangle-Hair Saga 1) by Bruce Macbain

Driven from the flaming ruin of his Iceland farmhouse, young Odd Tangle-Hair, the only survivor of a feud in which his family is slaughtered, steals a ship, rounds up a rag-tag crew and embarks on the Viking life. He swears one day to return, rich and powerful enough to take vengeance on his enemies. But how far off that day seems!

His father, Black Thorvald, had once been a chieftain in Iceland. But in the year 1000, when the country adopted Christianity, Thorvald denounced the new faith and shut himself up in his hall, shunning the world and shunned by it. Odd fears that the worm of cowardice that unmanned his father has infected him too. He has inherited from Thorvald a shock of black hair, a gift for poetry, and an allegiance to Odin, god of battles and magic. But Odd is heir to darker traits as wellóa hint of madness and a temper which will sometimes cost him dearly.

Fate carries him and his men to a shamanistic healer in Lapland, to bloody religious strife in Norway, to the lair of a witch in Finland, and finally to the borders of Russia. Here Odd will leave his comrades behind to join the retinue of a Norwegian princeling who is fleeing to the court of Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Rus. New dangers wait for him in that faraway country.

Eager, curious, quick-wittedóand sometimes wrong-headedóOdd Tangle-Hair recounts his story with candor, insight, and always an ironic sense of humor.

Christianity has come to 11th century Iceland and old traditions are changing while dividing some families on the way. 16-year old Odd’s father is holding to old pagan believes which is driving a wedge between his family and neighbors. After revenge killing becomes a political problem, Odd is sent to exile. He steals a ship and decides to go viking.

It did take me some time to really get into the story. At times it concentrates to describe things too much and while there is plundering, murder and blood, I guess I just expected there to be more of that. I liked Odd but I never understood why men would follow him and call him captain. He wasn’t someone to inspire that kind of loyalty.

And yey there’s Finland and Kalevala but I wasn’t really into those chapters. Kalevala chapters just didn’t work for me and I have to say that I’ve never read it so I can’t comment on that. But for me Kalevala is this mythical thing and 11th century is just too close. I mean we’re close to the Norman conquest! Too much is known about the period to be mythical.

It wasn’t a bad book by any means but I guess I just expected more.

3/5

Published: Blank Slate Press (May 26, 2015)
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 400
Source: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

About the Author03_Bruce Macbain_Author

From boyhood, Bruce Macbain spent his days in reading history and historical fiction. The Greeks and Romans have held a special fascination for him and this led to earning a masterís degree in Classical Studies and a doctorate in Ancient History. Along the way, he also taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borneo. Later, he taught courses in Greek and Roman civilization at Vanderbilt University and Boston University, and published a few dense scholarly monographs, read by very few. Recently, he has turned to writing fiction, a much more congenial pursuit. He has previously published two historical mysteries set in ancient Rome, Roman Games and its sequel, The Bull Slayer. Now, he has turned his attention to his other favorite folk, the Vikings. Odin’s Child is the first novel of a trilogy, Odd Tangle-Hairís Saga, which follows our heroóa wanderer, poet and warriorófrom his tiny Iceland farm to the Great Palace in Constantinople. It will be published by Blank Slate Press in May, 2015.

Bruce spends his spare time in the kitchen, cooking spicy food.

For more information please visit Bruce Macbain’s website. You can also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Goodreads.

Odin’s Child Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, June 29
Review at A Book Geek
Interview at Shelf Full of Books
Spotlight & Giveaway at Unshelfish

Tuesday, June 30
Interview at Brooke Blogs

Wednesday, July 1
Review at Book Nerd

Friday, July 3
Spotlight at Layered Pages
Spotlight & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Monday, July 6
Interview at A Literary Vacation

Tuesday, July 7
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, July 8
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews

Thursday, July 9
Review at Bookramblings

Friday, July 10
Review at Just One More Chapter

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reviews June 23, 2015

Shadow of the Raven by Millie Thom

Millie ThomShadow of the Raven (Sons of Kings 1) by Millie Thom

A tale of Viking raids, hapless thralls, noble kings and their sons and friendship and love. Above all else, a tale of unforgivable betrayal and the ever-present desire for revenge…

The life of Eadwulf, ten-year old son of the Mercian king, is changed forever when his family is betrayed to the Danes by his treacherous uncle. In a Danish raid, his father is killed and his mother is raped. And along with his tutor and childhood friend, Eadwulf is captured and taken to the Danish lands to be sold as a slave. As a thrall in Jarl Ragnar’s village, Eadwulf’s life is hard, his days unbearably long. But on the return of Bjorn, the jarl’s jovial firstborn, from his summer raids, Eadwulf’s life greatly improves. Under the protective wing of Bjorn and his crew, he spends the next few years sailing to places he’d never even dreamed of, trading and raiding. And though he’s still a thrall, he becomes a well-respected member of Bjorn’s closely knit crew. But through it all, the smouldering desire for revenge on those who destroyed his family refuses to abate. Eadwulf’s tale plays out against the backdrop of events unfolding in Wessex in the face of escalating Danish raids. Alfred, the fifth son of the Wessex king, faces family tragedies from an early age, losing first his mother, then his beloved sister when she is married to the new Mercian king. At his father’s court and the successive courts of his three elder brothers, he learns the weighty art of kingship. And, like Eadwulf, he learns the harshest lesson of all . . . that a trusted kinsman can so easily turn traitor.

This is the story of the early years of Alfred of Wessex and the fictional Eadwulf of Mercia, son of Beorhtwulf of Mercia. Eadwulf is 10 years when his home is attacked by Vikings, his father killed and Eadwulf taken as a slave. He learns the viking ways and in time earns the respect of his master Bjorn. Meanwhile Alfred is growing as the king’s youngest child who is already showing piousness as a 4 year old. Mature for his years, his life is also turning upside down when his mother dies.

This started really slow but I’m glad I kept reading because after it started picking up it was good. Eadwulf goes from being king’s son to a slave, thrall, and becoming one of them. But he never forgot who he is or where he came from and longs to avenge his family.
Alfred is so young that he doesn’t really do anything in this book but I’ll look forward seeing more about him.

There’s lot of great minor characters like Bjorn and his sister Freydis and I hope we get to see some of them in the future.

3,5/5

Published: self published (2015)
Format: ebook
Source: NetGalley