The Captive Queen by Alison Weir

September 1151. The Loire Valley. The future Henry II and his father, Geoffrey of Anjou, are heading back north after a visit to the French court and decide to strip off for a swim on the way.

Laughing, they splashed each other vigorously, then wrestled in the rippling water.

Reading this, I wasn’t comfortable with where the scene was going.

Henry was surprised to find his father’s muscles iron-hard – not bad for an old man of thirty-eight, he thought. He had glimpsed too Geoffrey’s impressive manhood.

Now I really don’t like where this is going. Glance nervously at the next page to read:

Their horseplay abandoned

THANK GOD.

What made me suspect that an innocent swim might turn into something a little less innocent?

The previous 21 pages.

The Captive Queen begins in August 1151 in Paris as Eleanor and Louis are preparing to receive Geoffrey of Anjou. Something I remembered from When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kay Penman. The book opens with Eleanor’s POV in a very sub-Jean Plaidy style:

Thus ran the Queen’s tumultuous thoughts as she sat with the King on their high thrones, waiting for Geoffrey and his son Henry to arrive, so that Louis could exchange with them the kiss of peace and receive Henry’s formal homage. The war was thus to be neatly concluded – except that there could be no neat conclusion to Eleanor’s inner turmoil.

which makes it all the more surprising when the next sentence is:

For this was to be the first time she had set eyes on Geoffrey since that blissful, sinful autumn in Poitou, five years before.

Definitely don’t remember this from Sharon Kay Penman.

It had not been love, and it had not lasted. But she had never been able to erase from her mind the erotic memory of herself and Geoffrey coupling gloriously between silken sheets, the candlelight a golden glow on their entwined bodies. Their coming together had been a revelation after the fumbling embarrassment of the marriage bed and the crude awakening afforded her by Marcabru;

Hold that thought. More about Marcabru coming up (so to speak) very soon.

she had never dreamed that a man could give her such prolonged pleasure. It had surged again and again until she had cried out with the joy of it, and it had made her aware, as never before, of what was lacking in her union with Louis.

Right, so now she’s going to see Geoffrey again and she’s scared she’ll give herself away. But ONE PAGE LATER she loses interest in Geoffrey entirely when:

Eleanor took one look at Henry – and saw Geoffrey no more…Lust knifed through her. She could barely control herself. Never had she reacted so violently to any man.

After Bernard of Clairvaux has interrupted to tell Eleanor the legend of Melusine, which she would already know and he would know she knew, Eleanor and Henry get talking and don’t beat around the bush. So to speak.

‘Madame the Queen, I see that the many reports of your beauty do not lie,’ Henry addressed her, sketching a quick bow. Eleanor felt the lust rising again in her. God, he was beddable! What wouldn’t she give for one night between the sheets with him!

Fortunately Henry feels the same:

‘You need a real man in your bed,’ Henry told her bluntly, his eyes never leaving hers, his lips curling in a suggestive smile.

Henry knows better than to expect a slap in the face – after all, he’s heard all about Eleanor:

‘I have heard one or two things that made me sit up and take notice,’ he grinned. ‘Or stand up and take notice, if you want the bare truth! But I have been no angel myself. We are two of a kind, my queen.’

Later that night, Eleanor gazes at her naked self imagining Henry’s reaction once he cops an eyeful:

The very thought of that steely, knowing gaze upon her nudity made her melt with need, and her fingers crept greedily down to that secret place between her legs, the place that people like Bernard regarded as forbidden to the devout: the place where, five years before, she had learned to feel rushes and crescendos of unutterable pleasure

(Only it was utterable, because we’ve already been told she ‘cried out with the joy of it.’) Anyway. Remember Marcabru?

It was Marcabru the troubadour who had shown her how, the incomparable Marcabru, whom she herself had invited from her native Aquitaine to the court of Paris – where his talents, such as they were, had not been appreciated.

This seems rather surprising when we learn that he has

done what Louis never had to bring her to a climax, one glorious July day in a secluded arbour in the palace gardens.

With Marcabru banished and her interlude with Geoffrey over, Eleanor was flung back on her own resources:

Since then, she had learned to pleasure herself, and she did so now, hungrily, her body alive in anticipation of the joys she would share with Henry of Anjou when they could be together. And, gasping as the shudders of her release convulsed her, she promised herself that it would be soon.

All this by page 14.

In other words, so far this book read almost exactly like an erotic novel. Not as good as say, Portia da Costa, but a fair enough effort at a Plantagenet sex romp. The trouble is, I wasn’t expecting to read a Plantagenet sex romp. I was expecting to read a serious novel about Eleanor of Aquitaine.

The not-particularly-well-written sex was only part of the problem. Eleanor was portrayed as someone who thought with her panties, who only considered Henry as a potential husband after jumping into bed with him. She had the sexual appetite of Judith Krantz’s Billy Ikehorn, but not the ambition. At this point, I really didn’t feel as if I wanted to spend over 450 pages with her. If this was my idea of Eleanor, I’d read Alan Savage.

I decided to look at one of the non-sex scenes (when I could find one) and see what I thought of that before giving up and returning the book to the library. I flipped 15 years ahead to 1166. Eleanor is heavily pregnant with her last child, John, and heading for Oxford when she is diverted to Woodstock by bad weather:

It was cold in the wilds of Oxfordshire, and there was a promise of snow in the leaden air. The sky was lowering, the skeletal trees bending before the icy wind.

So far so good.

Eleanor sat huddled in her litter, her swollen body swathed in furs, aware that she should find some place of shelter soon, for it could not be long now before this babe was ready to greet the world.

I thought this made her sound like a cat who’s planning to give birth in someone’s sock drawer.

At Woodstock, Eleanor notices a new tower has been built…and there’s a light at the top of it.  At the top of the tower she finds:

a pretty domestic scene. The room was warm, heated by the coals in a glowing brazier. An exquisitely beautiful young girl was sitting before a basin of chased silver, humming as she washed herself with a fine holland cloth, by the dancing light of many wax candles. She wore only a white chemise, draped around her waist, exposing her upper body. In the instant before the startled nymph gasped and covered herself, Eleanor’s shrewd eyes took in the small, pink-tipped breasts, the long, straw-coloured tresses, the firm, slender arms and the damp, rose-petal skin.

In this book, I’m not comfortable with Eleanor noticing anybody’s nipples.

This is, of course, Henry’s mistress Rosamund de Clifford. Eleanor has no idea who Rosamund is. Rosamund has no idea who she is. After a round of introductions, Eleanor gets to the point:

‘I will not beat about the bush,’ the Queen said. ‘Tell me the truth. Are you his mistress?’

As Rosamund stutters and begs for mercy, Eleanor feels ‘sick to her stomach’, ‘betrayed.’ She asks if Rosamund realises that she, Eleanor, is pregnant with Henry’s child.

I can see that given the way Eleanor is portrayed in this book, she might feel the paternity of her child requires some clarification. Anyway. While Rosamund weeps, Eleanor threatens her:

‘Do you know what I could do to you?’ Her eyes narrowed as she moved – menacingly, she hoped – closer towards the snivelling creature kneeling before her. She was filled with hatred. She wanted this girl to suffer, as she herself was suffering. ‘I could have you whipped! If I had a mind to, I could call for a dagger and stab you, or have your food poisoned. Yes, Rosamund de Clifford, it would give me great pleasure to think of you, every time they bring you those choice dainties that my husband has no doubt ordered for you, wondering if your next mouthful might be your last!’

Rosamund decides to stand up for herself.

‘My Lady will know that one does not refuse the King,’ Rosamund said in a low, shaking voice. ‘But…’ and now Eleanor could detect a faint note of defiance – ‘I did love him, and what I gave I gave willingly.’

Her words were like knives twisting in the older woman’s heart.

After Rosamund goes on to tell Eleanor that Henry stayed at Woodstock with her ‘all last autumn, winter and spring’, built her the tower and the labyrinth and commanded her to wait there for his return, Eleanor is devastated:

Like an animal with a mortal hurt, she wanted to retreat to a dark place and die…

‘Never let me set eyes on you again!’ she hissed at Rosamund, then turned her back on the girl, glided from the room with as much dignity as she could muster

and announces to her entourage that the place is:

‘…wholly unfit for habitation. Like it or not, we must make for Oxford.’ She knew had to get away from Woodstock as quickly as possible. She could not endure to share a roof with Rosamund de Clifford, or even breathe the same air. She must go somewhere she could lick her wounds in peace.

Fast forward to Oxford where, after her encounter with Rosamund, Eleanor has ‘no heart for this labour’ and ‘turned her face away’ when the child is born. However, she pulls herself together sufficiently to decide on a name for the baby:

‘…I mind me that the Feast of St John the Apostle and St John the Evangelist is in three days’ time. I shall call him John.’

Now we get some heavy foreshadowing as Eleanor’s sister Petronilla thinks that:

what should have been a happy occasion was, for some reason beyond her comprehension, a very sad one.

And sure enough, two years later:

Try as she might, Eleanor still could not bring herself to love him, this child conceived in sorrow and born in betrayal. His existence conjured up too many memories of that terrible Christmas-tide, when she had gone to Woodstock and come face-to-face with catastrophe and ruin, and then endured that bloody, agonising travail at Oxford. No, John was the fruit of a marriage in its death throes, and sometimes she could not bear to look upon him. His nurses had the care of him.

Which is obviously why he turned out as badly as he did. The implication is that if Eleanor hadn’t stopped at Woodstock on that snowy night, Magna Carta might never have happened

Andrew C. Wheeler, ‘The Birth and Childhood of King John: Some Revisions’ (from Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons, 2002**), discussing the placement of Henry and Eleanor’s young children at the abbey of Fontevrault, makes several points. Firstly, ‘there seems no reason to doubt that it was Henry’ who made the decision to send the children to Fontevrault. Secondly, ‘Nothing suggests that [Eleanor’s daughter, also called Eleanor] ever lived at Fontevraud.’ Thirdly, sending John and his sister Joan there would make them more accessible to their parents, not less: ‘the central location of Fontevraud would make it accessible to both Henry and Eleanor, he from Normandy or Anjou, she from Poitou, for such parental functions as they chose to fulfil.’

Weir, however, has Eleanor racked with guilt at her decision to consign her children (including Eleanor) to Fontevrault, despite the fact that John and his sister Joan are so young at this point (1168) they couldn’t possibly travel with the court anyway. Weir’s biography of Eleanor came out before Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady was published, so she couldn’t have taken it into consideration when writing her biography, but, considering the lack of evidence about Eleanor, wouldn’t it have made sense to catch up on recent research before writing her novel? Instead, Weir has chosen to fill the gaps with all the old cliches about Eleanor, many of them based on either medieval misogyny or Victorian ideals of womanhood. Her admirers will perhaps argue that this makes for better fiction. In this case, I found that it didn’t.

***

I borrowed this book from the library.

Cross-posted to The Misadventures of Moppet.

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Viking in Love by Sandra Hill

Heavens, where on earth do I start? I know it’s historical romance and don’t expect as much as I would from an historical novel, but still – this is beyond bad. I’ll try to make the synopsis short and sweet and spare you the details. I only picked this one up at the library as Harriet said something in her glowing review about a Viking S-trick and we had to know.

Set in the 10C in Northumbria, the story begins as Vana the White (I am not kidding) and her merry band of Viking princesses are disposing of the pieces of the body of Vana’s abusive husband down the privy (I am not kidding). Fearing trial and hanging they flee for their lives and seek succor at the home of distant relative Caedmon of Larkspur. The Princesses find the place a disaster (Caedmon’s been off a-knighting with the King) and proceed to fix it up. Cleaning the walls, planting roses and repairing the roof (I am not kidding) and mothering Caedmon’s wild band of children from two previous marriages plus the odd illegitimate child.

Of course you know when Caedmon returns home he’s going to set sights on one of the Princesses and it’s lust at first sight, right? It is a romance after all. This is where I’ll spare you the details but these two end up making a silly agreement to protect the others and she’ll sleep with him for ten nights (swive is Caedmon’s word for it). Thus proceeds lots and lots of sex in mind numbing quantities and in any position you can imagine. You do not want to know about the various places on a body wherein honey can be put on and then licked clean. Here’s a few choice quotes just so you can see how profound (not) the writing is,

“Piers chose that moment to prove that he was all boy by aiming his little pizzle at Caedmon’s chest, soaking his clean tunic.”

“The red-headed princess witch of the north was up at the top of Larkspur’s roof, rounding at one of the slates.”

“She lifted his cock and stared at his ballocks, as if she had just enearthed some secret. ‘Eeew, it is hairy. Like peach fuzz.’”

“Slowly she felt him remove the finger and caress her back, spreading her wetness.”

“You are wet for me.”

“She lifted his cock and stared at his ballocks, as if she had just enearthed some secret. ‘Eeew, it is hairy. Like peach fuzz.’”

“Slowly she felt him remove the finger and caress her back, spreading her wetness.”

“Canter or gallop m’lord?”

Hehe, and she’s not talking about riding horse there either. I think you get the picture. The sex scenes were excruciating and made me want to wash my head out with soap and water. Top all that off with this bizarre slap-stick type of modern humor and it just doesn’t cut it. I know there are readers who like nothing better than page after page of detailed sex acts in a prettified make believe historical setting but for anyone else I suggest giving it a pass. I hear the author is known for her slap stick style of humor and she’s written some kind of Gone With the Wind take off. No, I am not going to do it. No way, no how. Not for anyone.

And I almost forgot to mention what the infamous Viking S trick is (thanks Daphne for reminding me). After putting myself through that torture it was all for nothing. The hero learns of it and tells her that’s what he’s going to do and the story ends. We’ll never know.

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Heart of a Warrior by Betty Davidson

  

“You swept into my life like a raging storm” and “Right now ’tis not our trust that I crave the most,” she admitted.”

Sigh, where do I begin? Our dashing hero is David D’Aubere, Earl of Lynchburg, a landless Earl (is there such a thing?) and great warrior who has sworn fealty to Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Margaret is thrilled when David lops off the head of her sworn enemy, and rewards him with a great castle and marriage to an heiress, although the joke is on him when he finds his wife by proxy with the mental capacity of a child. He needs an heir to keep his new lands and just like magic a beauteous servant by the name of Riley crosses his path and he decides to impregnate her and pass the baby off as that of his wife. Are you rolling your eyes yet? Never fear there’s more……

See it’s like this – our beauteous servant is no servant at all, she’s the daughter of the Yorkist Earl of Ewesbury and she and her older cousin crossed the English Channel all by themselves and managed to infiltrate the Lancastrian household as servants. No, I am not kidding – no men at arms or attendants to assist these Medieval Misses, no indeedy. Well, you know the H&H are going to fall madly in love, but with all the secrets between them the path to true love has a bump or two, including the newly crowned Edward IV attempting to seduce our heroine in his “love garden” (his words) and culminating in a grand tourney overseen by our heroine dressed only in her shift….

No, I am not kidding, although at least by the tourney she had finally found herself a headdress and covered all those runaway curls. I could go on, but I’m fairly certain you get the idea. If you’re looking for a good story with some decent writing I suggest you look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a wall-paper romance with no purpose other than constant sex this might do but honestly it was pretty dreadful as you can see for yourself,

“He increased his pace until her moans filled the chamber. The glossy elixir of her body bathed his fingers, and he knew that she was fast approaching her peak…..As his fingers wiggled inside of her, her body began to shake with spasm after spasm of jolting pleasure…..her buttocks lifted, her hidden corridor sealing to his fingers, pulsing and brimming over with a hot lather.”

“Lowering his mouth to her, he kissed the pink rose of her sex……Her whole body melted into a mist as his tongue caressed the swollen kernel hidden within her womanhood. The heat of his breath, mingled with his searching tongue, left her keening with ecstasy.”

Although I do give the author credit for not including any volcanos of honey :p

Could this get any worse? Well yes it can, because there’s a sequel set during the time of Richard III and the missing princes. Stay tuned…….

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Are Robin Hood’s tights too tight?

***Adult content warning. If you are at work and don’t want the censor alarms going off and notifying the boss what you are really doing I suggest you stop and wait until you get home***

Lol! How’s that for a cover for you. I discovered this book in a round about way (long story, we don’t need to go there) and as a cock-up (pun most definitely intended) my Secret Santa sent me this. I am guessing everyone wanted to see what I could do with it so here we go…..

This “Adults Only” book (there is probably a very good reason the look inside feature is not available on Amazon) is author Tim Desmondes’ take on the old Robin Hood legends. He sets his version in the 1180’s when Henry and Eleanor of Aquitaine are still on the throne. Story wise it pretty much follows the standard lines of being branded as an outlaw, living in the forest with the Merry Men and his true love Maid Marian. Where this does go well off the beaten path is the sexual activities and language in this book, much of which I am too embarrassed to even share here. Perhaps if the author had kept his tongue firmly planted in his cheek and kept it light it might have been a bit more *fun* but as it was it was obnoxious and downright painful to get through – but I took one for the team and slowly carried on.

I will share a few quotes with you and remember – these are the tamest, and the *** at the end of certain words are inserted by me.

After his first romp in the hay with his beloved Maid Marian,

“He was a merry Robin. He had found his Maid Marian who had literally found him to her taste.”

Use your imagination and you can figure out what she was tasting, and be very very glad I didn’t quote from just before that. Very glad.

“He had to take pleasure in those voluptuous boobs. As his sweetheart lay on the bed sighing, he applied his lips to those extended nipples that had popped up perkily to greet his. As he sucked and suckled, Main Marian’s right hand encircled his balls”

It gets worse, but I am not going further.

“…Queen Eleanor’s eyes fairly bugged out when they bored in on the bulge in Robin’s tights. She was not disappointed. Unless the outlaw wore falsies he very much lived up to her expectations.”

Falsies? I am sooooo not going there.

“As Robin stared, amazed and in awe, at the most beautiful tits in the Westerns world, Eleanor gazed, awestruck, at the most esthetically gorgeous c*** and balls she had ever encountered. Although he was her subject, Robin took the initiative and bolted directly to that pair of nipples that were winking at him across the room……..Neither minstrelsy nor history record the intricacies of who did what to whom in what was undoubtedly the greatest f***fest of the eleventh century.”

**scratches head** 11C? Kind of makes the Alan Savage novels look good. Almost.

“The queen smiled to herself. She well knew how Robin could shoot with his glorious personal arrow.”

“Matching his Saxon c*** to Eleanor’s Aquitainian c*** that evening, the Battle of Hastings was re-enacted with victory achieved by both sides.”

I do not want to know. I do not want to know. I do not want to know. The book continues on with the rest of Robin’s story including his meeting with the Lionheart (oh I was sooooooo scared what he was going to do there – but whew it didn’t happen) along more pages and pages of someone else’s poetry and/or old ballads. Perhaps if you’re into reading porn this might appeal but otherwise I’d give it a pass. Bad, unbelievably bad.

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Vow of Seduction by Angela Johnson

Adj. 1. ungulated – having or resembling hoofs; “horses and other hoofed animals”

Lol! When I spotted this word in a very weird sex scene I assumed it was merely a bad typo – until I looked up the meaning. Clearly my limited imagination was not grasping everything the author was trying to convey. Probably just as well it went over my head. Sir Alex de Beaumont has pledged to go on crusade with Edward Longshanks (soon to be Edward I), but he fears telling his new bride and slips out quietly after consummating the union. He disappears and is believed dead, but returns just as Lady Katherine (Kat) is preparing to wed again. Kat not being your typical meek and dutiful Medieval Miss she declares her husband to be a “treacherous bastard” among other names and denies her husband her bed (why the King and the priests didn’t insist she be an obedient wife and submit to her husband…..). Alex is part alpha male and part wimp and pleads with Kat to allow him the chance to regain her trust – but if he can’t he’ll go to the Pope and get an annulment (how on earth he thinks he’ll get that when even Kings had a hard time getting one of those I’ll never know….).

There’s also a mystery surrounding the attack on Alex and his imprisonment, and the threats on his life continue upon his return to court and include a couple of baddies referred to as Scarface and One Eye (how original). Of course Kat gets involved despite Alex’s efforts to keep her in the dark and just like any other well bred medieval noblewoman she can pull the dagger from her boot and throw it with daring precision as well as being able to tumble the bad guy over her shoulder, rides astride like a man (at court, no less while attending on the Queen) leap tall buildings with a single bound…..

Um, just kidding about the last one. This is a silly silly plot filled with more holes than swiss cheese, very bad sex scenes in minute excruciating detail (although some are so OTT they’re laugh out loud funny at times),

“After long delicious moments he added his thumb and pressed against her engorged bud. She cried out loud, her juices bathing his fingers.”

“her breasts peeped out like twin melons, lushly abundant and full. He wanted nothing more than to pluck the sweet flesh to readiness, to suck and plunder her breasts with his lip and tongue.”

 

Add to that a heavy-handed use of words in an effort to make it all sound authentic – “prithee”, “forsooth”, “verily” “aright” and others (at least there wasn’t a bunch of “woe is me”). Whew. I lost count at how many times Alex “snarled” and “growled”, let alone how many times we had to hear about the tips and buds of Kat’s bountiful breasts. Gag me. Oh and since it’s a purply prosed romance novel we must have an abundant overuse of the word honey:

“He shouted out as his essence exploded inside her. Simultaneously her honey-drenched muscles contracted tightly around his shaft again and again………Kat cried out as her flesh throbbed and her honey flowed, the little contractions inside her milking his seed into her womb.”

“The honey-drenched walls of her sheath contracted around his fingers.”

 

In the end, it’s just a fluffy wall-paper romance in a make believe historical setting that’s really only there for the purpose of filling it with OTT sex scenes which includes lots of oral sex (I could swear that would have been considered a sin and they should have been running for the nearest priest to confess but what do I know?). If that’s what you like in a book, this might be the one for you. Otherwise, I’d skip this. Wish I had.

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Gaveston by Chris Hunt

Don’t stare too long at that cover, those eyes will give you the willies. Sooooo, I’m going my merry way checking the HF forum at PaperbackSwap and stumble into one about a book on Edward II I’d never heard of – Gaveston – which focuses on his notorious relationship with Piers Gaveston. The only setback is it’s published by the Gay Men’s Press Collection. Yikes!

Anyhoo, one of the gals who’d just read it decided to pass it along to me and I’d heard that Hunt’s historical facts were spot on so I was game to give it a whirl. Although, what was billed as a love story was IMHO more of a lust story, but I only made it to page #101 so what do I know? Maybe it did get serious later on…..

Or maybe not. The book starts when Edward is a young teen and he already has a bent towards his preference to men over women by the time Piers shows up. Edward is instantly smitten and desperately in love – does Piers return his feelings or is he simply in it for lands and titles? After slogging through their *wedding ceremony* as well as Piers taking young Edward out to the stews to give him some experience with a woman (wonder why that encounter was behind closed doors without a scrap of detail but the next one where it’s all young boys we get a full blown no holds bared retelling?). Gross, gross, gross – although the book finally flew when in the midst of a battle campaign surrounded by an army the lads just can’t keep their hands off of each other.

“Piers stood in his breeches, a sight to be savoured. There was the firmness of his dark-skinned torso, and his muscular arms; the lean slender belly, the little black curls that showed about the navel. But the breeches! The breeches were tight-fitting, hugging arse and thighs to somewhat above the knee,and trimmed with orphrey, as it is called, Phrygian gold, that same rich embroidery that priests use on holy vestments. Luxurious, sybaritic, sensuous….

I licked my lips. “Unpeel, O blessed one.”

And that friends is when the book flew – although at least there wasn’t any volcano of honey :p

Edward was a simpering wimp constantly mooning over Piers (actually more over his “arse”, but you get my drift) and I just couldn’t take anymore. I guess if you are really interested in the period and can tolerate the constant sex go for it, but in the meantime Michele is next on the list, although what payback I’ll get this time has me quaking in my boots.

If you do want to read more about Edward, I highly recommend Susan Higginbotham’s excellent The Traitor’s Wife. I appreciate an author who can take such a controversial topic and handle it with good taste and delicacy and just shut the bedroom door. I hear the author has written several other *historical fiction* books but I think I’ll pass.

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The Conqueror by Kris Kennedy

Judging by the cover, I knew it was a fluffy romance going in to it but I did see a good review on Dear Author so I decided to take the plunge. It started off well enough, set towards the end of England’s Civil War between Stephen and Maude, our heroine the daughter of a recently deceased Earl on the run from the Evil Baron who wants to force her into wedlock meets up with Tall Dark and Handsome Hero who saves her from the baddies in the nick of time and *sigh* true love begins. Pretty much your same old same old fluffy romance plot, some nice banter at first between them and despite some glaring discrepancies I thought I’d do OK with it all.

Then in the midst of the Dark and Stormy Night that went on and on and on as our heroine (hair flowing freely and unattended by any ladies whatsoever) escapes from the Evil Baron’s clutches by saddling a warhorse all by herself and slipping out of London undetected (!!) until she’s thrown from her horse in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the Evil Baron’s Evil Knights – but never fear Studly Hero to the rescue of our damsel in distress. Now remember all these events take place during a long October evening (I know the nights are longer that time of year but still!) – hero takes lady to some safe house and he rides to a castle to conspire against King Stephen.

Of course our heroine can’t stay put and wet and bedraggled she gets herself a horse and rides out and ends up at the same castle our hero is at. She’s greeted by the owner, no wife or other woman in sight and is taken to a bedroom by the male owner – no woman of the household to escort this earl’s daughter. No indeedy. Of course our hero accidentally runs into her, they suck face and then escape and he takes her to an old Saxon stronghold (gad, there’s a lot of castles within horse-ride range, aren’t there?), where he meets up with his cronies working to support Henry’s bid to bump Stephen off the throne.

Whew, tired yet? Maybe they had horse freeways back then for speedy night travellers. Maybe it was the medieval ‘burbs’ and all those places were right around the corner from each other. Oh hell, it’s only a romance so I’m not supposed to nitpick and I determined to slog through it all until…

…..the prose turned the most awful shade of purple as the two lovers shared the bed starting at page #133,

“He slid a wicked hand under her waist and lifted her hips into his. Hot, sizzling spurts of fire burgeoned in her womb. More. She wanted more.”

Onto page #134,

“He slid his hands over her hips, down to her trembling thighs. Pushing them ever so slightly apart, he slid his fingers up her inner thigh, until he hovered against the pink folds dripping with slippery juices.”

Gag me. Onward,

“His confident fingers searched….”

Confident fingers. OK….

Page #263 and he’s backed her up against a wall in the castle, lifted her hips up and we have this,

“Leaning forward, he ran his tongue along the hot, wet seam of her womanhood……..Dizzy with victory he slid his hand up and glided gently along the hot, pink seam, plied back her folds and licked again…….She erupted in a howl of such pleasure he almost spilled himself……He spread her apart further with his fingers and nuzzled deeper into the hot slippery cave of pulsing pink flesh…..She flung her head back so hard it hit the wall, her fingers restlessly tugging in his hair, a whimpering-wet goddess of passion.”

“She flung her head back so hard it hit the wall”. Heh, once again we have a whole new definition of wall banger, which is what I hereby christen this book as I throw it across the room. If all you’re looking for in your historical romance is a prettified wall paper setting book and plenty of over the top sex then this book might suit, but if you want a bit more substance in your romance I’d search elsewhere.

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Still looking for a good historical romance…

….and that’s because I did not find it here. I have to fess up, when I read Harriet’s review wherein she gave it five stars and called it a “profound historical romance” along with the comment “never slows as William feels like he has three (his natural hardened sword) and often four (his metallic sword) legs throughout much of the plot”, I just had to go and see for myself (I do love it when Harriet gets frisky and tries to slide something by the Ammy censors).

Siobhan Fraser (an Irish name for a Scottish lass, how odd) discovers that her father has been kidnapped by the evil Pierre de la Roche who covets the hidden treasure of the Knights Templar, including the Spear of Destiny – whoever controls the spear can rule the world (raising your eyebrows in disbelief yet?). Coming to her rescue is Templar Knight Sir William Keith as the two find the hidden map to the treasure and the adventure begins. *Yawn*

I really didn’t have high expectations going into this, but I certainly didn’t expect to find such a jumbled mess of cartoon cut-out characters, including an evil baddie in the mold of Snidely Whiplash – I kept waiting for him to twirl his mustache (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Never fear, it gets worse. Our plucky heroine is able to travel anywhere and everywhere ALONE with our hero with nary an eyebrow raised by anyone, she gets a quick lesson in swordplay and she’s able to swing the broadsword like a man, leap tall buildings with a single bound…..

Actually that’s really our hero who just like Superman can outfight any evil baddie who crosses his path, including fighting his way through forty (yes 40) armed men with nary a scratch – let alone that scene where they’re both hanging by a thread above a spike filled dungeon. Did they have spike filled dungeons in the 14C?

But to top it all off is some of the most insipid dialog I’ve come across in a while,

“We are one.”

“I never imagined it could feel so good”

“I’ve never felt like this before”

Just the kind of talk I look for to liven up a sex scene. Not. Frankly the sex scenes were pretty crappy for your standard bodice ripper romance. No chemistry there. In the end, it’s just a big fluffy piece of preposterous nonsense – imagine the Saturday morning cartoons set to a book. But never fear – there’s more coming soon as this appears to be the first in a series. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll pass. Get it from the library if you must, I’m glad I did.

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Queen of Love by Alan Savage

Queen of Love picks up where Eleanor of Aquitaine left off. Eleanor is now married to Henry II and Queen of England and she starts dropping children left and right – including the future Richard I and the infamous John Lackland, and continues as their now grown sons revolt against their father, Richard’s crusade and marriage to Berengeria, and into her old age and John’s rule and the murder of his nephew Arthur.

I found the first person narrative as an aging Eleanor reflects back her life really bogged this book down – there is just too much telling and not showing. Although when Savage does have Eleanor in the thick of things that *showing* is downright hilarious . From seducing her husband’s mistress Rosamund Clifford in the bath,

“…as she moved towards the steaming tub, pushing up her sleeve, added, “Not with your hand, girl. With your ass.'”

“My hand coursed up her thigh and over her left buttock, then moved up to her shoulder………I brought my hand out of her hair and back to her shoulder, then slid it in front, down to her breast, to cup it and hold it, and gently pinch the nipple.”

“…the fact that we had shared a bath, because after she had soaped me I had her in the tub on top of me, and as the water had flowed out our mutual desires had flowed in….”

To her relationship with a young William Marshal (oh my that wardrobe error),

“…and released the cord holding his hose. This promptly slipped about his ankles. Or certainly tried to do this. But it was impeded, and so, with dainty fingers, I helped it on its way…….. And I realised that the entire business would have to be in my hands. Well, it was, most literally.”

Then there’s her relationship with Blondel the lute player (I mean come on, she’s over 50 already and still getting it), although she did have to share him with her son Richard (well, maybe sharing is the wrong term – Richard picked up after mom was done).

But the hands down laugh out loud moment was Eleanor giving sex-ed lessons to her future daughter-in-law Berengeria. Knowing Richard’s taste for men, she was very very careful to give her a blow by blow of anything she could do to encourage him along the path to marital harmony, as well as any orifice that one might use to encourage his interest in one of the female persuasion. I’ll spare you those details -you don’t want to know, trust me. Although we do have Eleanor discussing the marriage with her long-time maid and friend,

“But this girl is our last hope, she must be to Richard what Richard wants and requires.”

“She doesn’t have a penis, your Grace.”

 

Priceless.

As in the first book, Eleanor does it with just about everyone but the Pope and Thomas Becket (although for a while I was afraid that was going to happen). But it’s not just Eleanor who gets to play around – her sons Richard and Geoffrey both get to diddle with the French King. Read these two books for the laughs only and not for the history.

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Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alan Savage

Despite a cover that has all the appearances of a serious historical novel, well all I can say is don’t judge a book by it’s cover . This is the first of two books Savage has written on the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and is written in the first person as an older Eleanor reflects back on her life. Just a brief run down for those not familiar with her life – heiress to the Duchy of Aquitaine, she is married to the very pious King Louis of France (he was the second son and was intended for the church until the elder brother died), they go on a disastrous crusade and after bearing only two daughters Louis has the marriage annulled and she goes on to marry the future Henry II of England, where this book ends.

Although according to the book jacket this is part of a “colourful romantic series”, I’ve got to tell you – enter at your own risk. Eleanor does it with just about everybody except for the Pope, Abbe Suger, the eunuch and a monk or two, starting from the age of twelve (!!) when her governess leads her into the arts of pleasure:

“Albina had been appointed my governess following Mama’s death…….Albina had never married, but she was definitely experienced. She it was who now undertook to instruct me in the business of being a woman and the duties of a wife. Well, I can’t say I much cared for the second half of her schooling…….and proceeded to tell me the facts of life. Well! My first reaction was consternation, that anyone, and particularly any man, should be allowed – and apparently encouraged – to make as free with my body as Albina indicated and was demonstrating.”

“As to the ways of myself or my maidservants, I was not in the least curious. Albina had taught me that our desires were mutual – in fact they were happy to tell me theirs, and their various means of satisfying them, in hopes of pleasing me – but however often we romped together our conversation always returned to the same subject, that of male codpieces and what might lie beneath them and what use may be made of such a remarkable apprutenance. As may be imagined, those of my attendants who actually claimed to possess personal acquaintance with such entrancing objects were in great demand, even if I was always uncertain as to whether they should be whipped for lying or wantonness.”

And then there’s the escapade with a young page (mind you, she’s still 12/13 years old) that leaves a telling stain on her skirt and raises eyebrows in the laundry (think Monica Lewinski):

“I will let you put your hand beneath my gown if you will untie your codpiece.”…… “he slipped his hand up my calf, carressed my knee, and moved it higher to my thigh…….I allowed Alfred full freedom, even to reach the silky down he was seeking…….he was full to bursting……”

Oh but we’re not done yet, let’s not forget the female bath attendants at Constantinople:

“I would be lying were I to claim that I did not feel a pang, several pangs, of alarm, when these girls began soaping my breasts and buttocks, sending their hands between my legs to arouse the most intense emotions. But I recalled the old saying that when in Rome…and Constantinople was far grander than Rome.”

Her uncle Raymond (ya’ll remember Deep Throat?):

“…my uncle knelt on the bed beside my shoulders, threw his other leg across me, and kneeling astride my breasts, allowed his weapon, huge and poised, to caress my face”

I’ll spare you the rest. Whilst on crusade she encounters the twelve year old Saladin:

“Saladin had me on my knees like the veriest bitch. Indeed, had he commanded me, I would have barked. Perhaps I did.”

Woof woof. On to Geoffrey of Anjou (oh my).

“Soon enough he was banging away again. Fortunately twice in rapid succession was sufficient even for the Angevin, at least in the short run….”

Although the hands down laugh out loud moments were at the end where she takes up with Henry’s mother the formidable Empress Matilda. Priceless.

Outside of the OTT sex scenes the rest of the novel is rather dry and suffers badly from the use of the first person narrative. Eleanor comes across as quite vain and full of herself and an entirely unsympathetic character. Read this one for the laughs and not for the history. I do have a copy of the second book, Queen of Love and I am curious to see what Savage does with the rest of Eleanor’s life. Wonder what she does with the Lionheart? William Marshal? Rosamund Clifford? Stay tuned….

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