Due to lingering fondness for Mary Spencer’s Wager Trilogy, I decided to dust off the her medieval Stavelot Series from Mount TBR. Which is all of two books. Mary Spencer currently writes paranormal Georgians as Susan Spencer Paul.
*****************************************************
The Vow (1994)
Sir Eric Stavelot is a famed knight of the realm, but he doesn’t know who his real parents are. Raised by a loving adoptive family, he’s known great happiness, but believes that love and marriage are beyond his reach. That doesn’t matter to Lady Margot le Brun, however, who has loved Eric since she was a girl. She is determined to have him for her husband, regardless of every obstacle that the world — and Eric — can set in her way.
Pages: 449
Grade: C
Series: 1 of 2, Stavelot Series
Long Ramblings: This wasnt satisfactory in terms of a historical read in the year 2008 but if you’re in the market for a sweet read set in the year 1403 in which characters fall in love instantly in the traditions of courtly love and talk with “thee” and “thou” and “certes” in their speech, this might work for you.
Lady Margot le Brun, a heiress with a stuttering problem, first meets Sir Eric when she is 8 and he is 13. Due to his kindness to her that day, she remains steadfast in her love for him for the next ten yrs. Sir Eric may grow into an ugly, dark, giant of a man but to Margot, he is the bestest, handsomest knight in the kingdom. Sir Eric on his side pretty much falls in love in a day or so since Margot has grown up into the prettiest chick in the land. So what’s the deal? The conflict comes from the fact that Eric doggedly refuses to marry Margot because he is adopted and dont know his heritage. He refuses to budge no matter how many times Margot tells him she loves and that it doesnt matter (and she does this A LOT) or even tho Margot’s father knows that Eric is spawned from the ebilest dude in England (Eric looks exactly like him, talk about convenient) and still implicitly gave his permission for the marriage. Basically, Eric is braindead. Electrical impulses still let him wield his sword, I guess.
I am going to automatically demerit a romance if the H/H first meet on Page 81 as this one does. I dont think there is any excuses for not having the H/H meet by Page 50 in a romance. But that’s just one of many, many things that disappointed me about this novel. I guess because medieval was a simpler time, there is none of the subtleties of characterization and observation that I so enjoyed in Spencer’s Wager series which were set in Regency. I also prefer when the author SHOWS the character falling in love and why instead of instant love as a given. And as mentioned before, the stubbornness of Eric just grated. Then to top it all off, I finally, FINALLY get to the wedding night and the author draws the curtain! The smut addict in me is outraged! Hell NO, you do NOT chicken out on the love scene after I muddle through 400 freakin’ pages! Where is the payoff?
Jeebus, I would have been better off reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Which rawks, BTW.
*****************************************************
Honor (1996)
Amica of Lancaster is a lady in great distress; Sir Thomas of Reed is the man sent to rescue her. She is a lady of great beauty and gentle manner, while he is a stern lord with a manner of steel. Thomas disdains affection and every soft emotion — until he meets Amica, who turns his well-ordered world upside down and proves that even the strongest man can learn to love.
Grade: B
Pages: 359
Series: 2 of 2, Stavelot Series
Ramblings: This was a much more interesting story than The Vow. The hero, Thomas, appears as a young plucky squire in the previous book. He grows up to be a strange hero that you dont usually see in romances: a gruff, socially inept male who is fanatically devoted to his master and has no use for woman except as an outlet. He doesnt even like to kiss and has no idea that women can find pleasure in bed also. Normally, this doesnt make him the ideal hero for a sadistically abused heroine like Amica and their romance is a real struggle with lots of starts and stops. I liked it as a fresh change of pace.
Points off for the H/H of The Vow showing up and littering the book with their vacuousness. I just wanted to forget.
I loved both these book especially Honor. Poor Thomas doesn’t know how to be around a woman and the scene where he tries to sleep with the whore (bad Thomas) and can’t and goes to Amica and breaks down, tore at my heart. And after they are married and Amica is walking around very very horny because Thomas has no clue about a woman’s needs! LOL.
Honor is a keeper on my shelf.
Seton~
I’m totally intrigued now by Honor. I heart historical fiction, and I love reading books that are so fully set in the tone of the period, that I can forget I’m in 2008.
And it’s great to see that Seton’s bro’s blog didn’t usurp Seton’s time. Diana loves to read Seton’s reviews, for she finds them refreshing, witty, and pretty darn accurate.
Diana
Great reviews as usual. I haven’t read these two books (not that big fan of medieval books), and as much as I love Shakespeare’s language, it can drive me bats**t.
But these reviews alone make me want to read these books? A hero who doesn’t know what to do in bed? Sounds more real than the hero who can keep going all night long like the Energizer Bunny.
It’s very rare I’ll go back and read something unless I’m gloaming an author. Books and genre’s evolve, and I like where romance has gone, I very rarely enjoy the older ones I’ve tried (pre ‘97) that’s just my lucky number. So I avoid going back unless they are apparent DIK’s… Whitney, My Love…and I really love that book. but couldn’t read it countless times–not enough sex to keep me happy *g*
Interesting nonetheless.
Elle~
You know, sometimes I wonder about that too. All night long? Even if the sex were great, and he was GORGEOUS, I would want to sleep. I’m such a b***h when I don’t get enough sleep.
/tangent
Diana
KB, I dinna like that scene with the tavern wench
. Too many writers have that scene where the hero is looking for an outlet because they cant shag the heroine and doesnt go thru with it.
The scene where Tom was complaining about Amica’s bad temper and why he didnt understand it and had to be clued in was pretty funny tho.
Diana, youre a sweetheart and yes, I am finally reading that Bourne novel this week.
And whenever I read those ebooks where the chick is “married” to two dudes or more, I get exhausted just thinking about it.
Elyssa, thank you. I think the author was trying to do the Middle English of Chaucer and Thomas More more than the language of Shakespeare (um, blanking on the type of English Shakes wrote in). I actually really, really dig Middle English. I would actually pick The Canterbury Tales for my desert island read or Le Morte de Artur, I love em that much. Kinsale’s For My Lady’s Heart is special to me because she does decide to go there with the language. But Spencer doesnt totally commit, IMO. I think the thous and thees came across as more flourishes.
Tiffany, interesting about the cutoff date. My cutoff date would have to be earlier since some of my faves were done in early 90s. I do think its more the author plays into it as much as dates. I was reading Kat Martin’s Nothing But Velvet which I think is 97? and her style is very old skool and it read like something I could find in the 80s (which is when she started to be published).
Thomas was a bit of an ass at times and I really wanted to hit him over the head. But his punishment was being horny and couldn’t do anything about it. Hah blue balls. nah nah.