
The Pirate's Physician (A Thrilling Companion Novella to the Sea and Stone Chronicles)
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When her world shatters, she dares to trust a pirate. Will she survive what comes next? The...
Historical Romance Renaissance Pirates Sea Adventures

Rewind: A Half-Century of Classics, Cult Hits, and Other Must-See Movies
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Some movies are iconic. Others are merely entertaining. In Rewind: A Half-Century of Classics, Cult...

Impetuous Valor (Alsaunce)
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Jonas finishes his training and becomes the Guardian of the heir to the throne of Alsaunce. He is...
historical fiction

The Last Roman: Exile
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Some debts you cannot repay, even if you live forever... Seasoned imperial officer Marcus...
historical fiction thriller fantasy

The Shadow Key
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There’s something devilish going on in the quiet Welsh village of Penhelyg. Will the shadow key...
Historical fiction Wales

Sorrow Spring
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Chilling and uncanny folk suspense in a novel of twisted sisterhood and dark secrets. Does a...
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Muzzle the Black Dog
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After a mysterious stranger appears at his isolated cabin door, Jack's life is forever changed. The...
Historical Psychological Thriller

Death Of A Princess (Empire of Shadows #3)
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Summer 1880. Lipetsk, a spa town in Russia. The elderly and cantankerous Princess Belskaya...
Russia Historical Crime Mystery Series

Sensitivemuse (246 KP) rated The Sworn Virgin in Books
Sep 28, 2017
The first half of the book was great and got the reading going pretty quickly. It wasn’t until the last third of the novel where things bog down and I was afraid of this: the moment the ‘man of the her dreams’ came into the story. Then I was instantly reminded as to why I hated “Memoirs of a Geisha” so much and this mirrors it. Holy mother. The guy was the sun, moon and stars for Eleanora. I kind of get it after what happened to her dad but for crying out loud I was rooting for Eleanora for taking the vow and being strong. All it takes is an Adonis to break that all down. Eleanora then takes a complete 360 and becomes a mooncalf.
I lost admiration after her treatment of Meria. I get it. Meria shouldn’t have done that nonsense because she’s all obsessed with family honor and had Eleanora’s best interest even though it was far from beneficial. I thought her treatment was excessive to the point of abuse and cruelty and I felt like jumping in and giving Eleanora the beat down for her stupidities.
Then Eleanora’s mood swings go from pity party to guilt and goes back and forth for what seemed like the entire last third of the novel and it got tiresome to read. You know Eleanora, you could have solved all this if you JUST. TELL. HIM.
And when she does. Your patience is done with the book and depending how you found the book you either breathe a sigh in relief or roll your eyes because it took about 50 pages to get Eleanora to smarten up and the book would have ended sooner than later.
I liked the book at first, but it just didn’t hold it for me. The pity trips, and the self torment Eleanora goes through is just too much and made up a good half of the novel. I wish it could have been better because the historical aspect was excellent.

Hazel (1853 KP) rated Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, #1) in Books
Dec 7, 2018
<i>Grave Mercy</i> is the first book in Robin LaFevers’ trilogy <i>His Fair Assassin</i> set in Brittany in the middle ages. Young Ismae Rienne escapes from her new, abusive husband to the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that she was sired by the god of death. She, like the other sisters of the convent, has been blessed with certain gifts as a result. Their job is to be the handmaidens of death and help to kill people on behalf of St. Mortain.
Ismae’s task is to live in the high courts with a man named Gavriel Duval in order to remove the traitors that threaten the soon to be crowned duchess, Anne. While she is there she begins to suspect that one of the allies is a traitor, but whom? She also begins to fall in love and feels torn in two when the convent demands his death.
It takes a long time to understand what is going on in <i>Grave Mercy</i> especially as a lot of it involves politics of an era of long ago. Towards the end it begins to become more exciting once the reader has worked out who are the good characters and who are the bad and all that is left is to discover how it all resolves itself.
There is something about death and murder in historical fiction that is more gruesome than in contemporary novels. This is another reason why the book was difficult to read.
Initially the amount of names listed on the “Dramatis Personae” at the start of the book was a little daunting however not all of them are key to the plot. The main character, Ismae, is likable and her strength and independence is admirable especially as women did not have much control over their lives at that time. Most of the other characters also existed in real life as, although in part a fantasy novel, LaFevers’ has kept it as historically accurate as possible.
Looking at the reviews on <i>Goodreads</i>, over 900 readers have listed <i>Grave Mercy</i> as Young Adult. After reading the book there is nothing to suggest that it was written for that age group. Admittedly the characters are very young: Ismae, 17, and Anne, 12; but in the 1400s they would have seemed older than society regards people of that age today. The romantic element of the novel is the kind you would expect to find in adult historical novels rather than books for younger readers.
Overall this is a book for people who appreciate historical and political fiction but also like an element of fantasy and romance. It is written really well but to be able to engage fully with the story you need to be really interested in the subject matter.