This is richly drawn historic novel full of action, suspense and romance. I loved the book and I grew to care about the main characters. The writing was good, although without any great literary pretensions.
That is not to say it was without faults. If anything, it leaned too heavily on the romance angle and I half expected to hear some over-baked "Harlequin" type hyberbole along with the sometimes graphic (though never vulgar) sex scenes. And the protagonist was SO good and SO lucky (I mean, would anyone really be able to survive everything from the Crusades to a wild boar attack????) that I thought he should be addressed as Saint Hugh.
In the audio version, there were two additional weaknesses. One was the use of strong Welsh and British accents for the main characters who are, after all, French. I am glad they didn't opt for phoney French accents, but it was disconcerting nonetheless.
The other, albeit even more minor, distraction was that the narractor called off each chapter number and, given that there were more than 140-something chapters (some very very short) this quickly became annoying.
Still, when the only faults you can find in a book are such minor ones, that says a great deal about the book!
That is not to say it was without faults. If anything, it leaned too heavily on the romance angle and I half expected to hear some over-baked "Harlequin" type hyberbole along with the sometimes graphic (though never vulgar) sex scenes. And the protagonist was SO good and SO lucky (I mean, would anyone really be able to survive everything from the Crusades to a wild boar attack????) that I thought he should be addressed as Saint Hugh.
In the audio version, there were two additional weaknesses. One was the use of strong Welsh and British accents for the main characters who are, after all, French. I am glad they didn't opt for phoney French accents, but it was disconcerting nonetheless.
The other, albeit even more minor, distraction was that the narractor called off each chapter number and, given that there were more than 140-something chapters (some very very short) this quickly became annoying.
Still, when the only faults you can find in a book are such minor ones, that says a great deal about the book!
