Helpful Score: 4
This is a book about a love triangle. Madeline loves Guy who is just doing his duty and has a wife. She marrys his nephew who is lost in a battle. Guy is sent to protect her but an affair begins with many twists and turns
Helpful Score: 3
Could not get into the book. Tried to read a couple of chapters and got bored with the book.
Helpful Score: 2
This review has spoilers:
This was kind of hard to read because there was a lot of repetition in the writing. It wasnt just repeated information but the same phrases used to describe things that were just discussed maybe two paragraphs prior. A lot of the book was very boring and hard to get into.
There was also a lot of ugliness that I really dont want to have to face while reading a romance, like husbands who cheat on their wives but did not count it as cheating because it was with prostitutes. Or the amount of rape that goes on after a battle or even in the marriage bed. Or how it was perfectly okay for a man to beat his wife or lover. And we are talking about the good guys here. So it was hard to fall in love with heroes who did these things. Yes, those actions probably went with the times but I guess I need a little halt in reality if I want to indulge in a romance.
What kept me reading was the relationship between Magdalen and Guy. When things were good with them it was wonderful and fun to read. There were moments where Magdalen gave into Guy too much, but Magdalen was a great character. Her strength kind of carried the book.
Unfortunately I found the book rather depressing and drawn out. The love scenes lacked completion which was rather frustrating. Even though the ending was happy Edmunds acceptance in the end wasnt really believable. I know I complained that I wanted a break from reality but I just dont buy that Edmund all of a sudden would be so forgiving of the two.
I would read Jane Feather again. Im not sure why. I always find her books somewhat entertaining but lacking. I wouldnt spend credits or real money on her stuff though. This one was more serious than Im used to in her books. She usually has more humor.
This was kind of hard to read because there was a lot of repetition in the writing. It wasnt just repeated information but the same phrases used to describe things that were just discussed maybe two paragraphs prior. A lot of the book was very boring and hard to get into.
There was also a lot of ugliness that I really dont want to have to face while reading a romance, like husbands who cheat on their wives but did not count it as cheating because it was with prostitutes. Or the amount of rape that goes on after a battle or even in the marriage bed. Or how it was perfectly okay for a man to beat his wife or lover. And we are talking about the good guys here. So it was hard to fall in love with heroes who did these things. Yes, those actions probably went with the times but I guess I need a little halt in reality if I want to indulge in a romance.
What kept me reading was the relationship between Magdalen and Guy. When things were good with them it was wonderful and fun to read. There were moments where Magdalen gave into Guy too much, but Magdalen was a great character. Her strength kind of carried the book.
Unfortunately I found the book rather depressing and drawn out. The love scenes lacked completion which was rather frustrating. Even though the ending was happy Edmunds acceptance in the end wasnt really believable. I know I complained that I wanted a break from reality but I just dont buy that Edmund all of a sudden would be so forgiving of the two.
I would read Jane Feather again. Im not sure why. I always find her books somewhat entertaining but lacking. I wouldnt spend credits or real money on her stuff though. This one was more serious than Im used to in her books. She usually has more humor.
Well written historical. High on the ick factors for me though. Heroine takes a lover and then there is the matter of her age.....
Great book. Feather books are always a quick read with great characters. The honor of a knight goes up against his desire for his ward.
14th century -- maybe it is me, but I think the hero protested too much throughout the book. Part of a series that I did not read.
Great story. Enjoyed the struggle between the characters & how they ended up.
LOVED IT! I love the medival time period so that was a plus.
a funny and lively may/december romance.
I read this book over and over when I was younger. I got annoyed with the main female character a bit, but in the end, understood her a bit better. This book will get some tears out of you.
I enjoyed this book immensely.
This is my all time favorite Jane Feather story and a definite 'keeper'. It is so well written. She keeps you glued to every page and it's absolutely heart-breaking in some spots, the kind of book that you read all the way through in one night because you can't wait to see what happens!
A bit challenging to read, but a great story.
Another fantastic book by a great author!!!
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.
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.
Magdalen, the illegitimate daughter of an English prince is a pawn in the struggle between France and England. A complex love story set in the midle ages
Almost Innocent is a romance that is particularly dear to me with a herione who surprised me with her strength and resourcefulness and a hero who will always be one of my favorites.
A passionate love story
Growing up behind the impenetrable walls of an English fortress, Magdalen does not know that she is the illegitimate daughter of a powerful English prince and his murdered French mistress-or that she has been a pawn in the struggle between England and France ever since she slipped from her dying mother's womb. All she knows is that she longs for excitement. Then one day, as if in answer to her prayers, Guy de Gervais, a true knight in shing armor, rides into her cloistered world and spirits her away.
For Magdalen, it is love at first sight-the one and only love of her life. Yet Guy sees only his responsibility to keep Magdalen safe until she can be wed to his nephew and thus fulfil her political destiny. When Guy returns from the bloody battlefields of France, Magdalen has grown into a stunning sensual beauty. Suddenly the noble knight is fighting the fiercest battle of his life; against a searing desire for a woman he cannot have.
For Magdalen, it is love at first sight-the one and only love of her life. Yet Guy sees only his responsibility to keep Magdalen safe until she can be wed to his nephew and thus fulfil her political destiny. When Guy returns from the bloody battlefields of France, Magdalen has grown into a stunning sensual beauty. Suddenly the noble knight is fighting the fiercest battle of his life; against a searing desire for a woman he cannot have.
