I read this when I was 18 and I recently found it again. I was so impressed with it then I did a book report on it and talked my high school teacher into reading it and he was very impressed. I was so glad to find it again and reread it. I loved that it was true history. There is a wonderful spiritual aspect in it too. This is a richly drawn portrait of a scintillating love affair in a time that was rife with political intrigue. Set in a medieval landscape with all the pageantry, strife, and turbulence that constituted fourteenth century England, this beautifully written narrative is peppered with those characters and individuals that made the period memorable. It is a novel to be savored and one with which the most discerning reader would be well satisfied.