A Crowning Mercy by Bernard Cornwell & Susannah Kells

I waited far too long to read another Bernard Cornwell novel after devouring his Arthurian trilogy in the late 90s. A Crowning Mercy (written with his wife, Judy, who used a pseudonym) was a rollicking read, filled with romance, peril and high adventure. It definitely whetted my appetite for more Cornwell!

Campion, the story's heroine, is a young woman raised in a dour family of English Puritans, who have taught her to fear a God of wrath and terrible punishment. Despite their strictures, Campion believes in her heart in a God of love and joy. Her encounter with the handsome Toby Lazender beside a stream gives her a first taste of how divine love can be, but she must face the worst of human cruelty and greed before she finds her own heaven on earth.

Campion's fate is inextricably entwined with the mysterious Covenant, symbolized by four beautiful golden seals that could unlock an inheritance of unimagined riches.

A Crowning Mercy is, at its heart, a very well written and intricately plotted adventure story, filled with despicable villains I wanted to boo and hiss and good-hearted heroes I wanted to cheer. The pages flew by as Campion faced one peril after another: a family plot to wed her to a pathetic man, a kidnapping, a siege, the death of a kind benefactor and the wounding of her true love, and a trial and near execution for witchcraft.

The novel examined deeper themes amid all the derring-do. The Cornwells explored how people sometimes use religion as a justification for fear and hatred, especially of women. The witchcraft trial scenes were harrowing and made me pity the real women and men throughout history who were falsely accused, tortured and executed. Our society may have moved beyond burning witches, but the story reminded me that such unreasoning fear and hatred, cloaked in religion's mantle, still exists today. The Cornwells also wove a thematic struggle throughout the novel between the notion of a God who delights in people's pain and a belief in a more kind, loving Creator.

The Cornwells also skillfully used the backdrop of the English Civil War to give the reader a good sense of the radical politics and religious fanaticism sweeping the country at the time.

A Crowning Mercy was my second read for the Historical Fiction Challenge and the February book of the month for the Historical Fiction forums at Paperback Swap. I thorougly enjoyed this novel and closed it with a sigh of regret that I had to leave its captivating world behind. Bravo, Mr. and Mrs. Cornwell! My grade: A.

Lust and love in historical fiction

The title Royal Harlot should have tipped me off.

I picked up Susan Holloway Scott's novel about Barbara Villiers Palmer, notorious mistress of England's Charles II, expecting a certain amount of titillation, but also hoping for an enlightening glimpse into merry Restoration London.

I got smut.

I have no problem with a bit of smut. A well-placed sex scene can liven up any story filled with treaties, treason, war, politics and beheadings. After all, where would Henry VIII be without the beguiling Anne Boleyn or that tart, Katherine Howard?

But a third of the way into Royal Harlot, I already felt bludgeoned by the sex scenes. Reading this novel was a bit like watching Showgirls.

Heaving bosoms and throbbing manhoods do not a plot make. Therefore, I finished the book totally unenlightened about Charles' Dutch wars or his divisive religious policies. Scott spent just a few pages on the Great Plague and Great Fire of London. (I learned more by quickly skimming Wikipedia entries than I did from this book.)

But I did discover Charles II and Barbara Villiers liked sex. A lot. My grade: D

Thankfully, another of my recent reads, Loving Will Shakespeare, brought the past vividly to life while offering a convincing love story. Carolyn Meyer's novel focuses on Anne (Agnes) Hathaway, who became Shakespeare's wife.

Historians know little about Anne, other than Shakespeare bequeathing her the "second-best bed" in his will, and that she was eight years older than her husband. Meyer's Anne is a lonely girl growing up in an unhappy home, who despairs of ever finding someone to love her. She is drawn to Will by his charm, creativity and zest for life and as he becomes a young man, finds herself unexpectedly falling in love with him. Their romance will be bittersweet, as Shakespeare will spend most of his time in London, wedded more to the theater than to his wife.

The novel included many wonderful scenes of rural village life in Elizabethan England, including holiday customs, marriage traditions and the excitement generated by the queen's annual progress. My grade: A-

Morgan Llywelyn's Strongbow: The Story of Richard and Aoife, another novel centering on a love story, left me wanting to know much more about its protagonists. It was an absorbing, touching read, but too short. My grade: B-

Richard de Clare (Strongbow) was a Norman knight denied his lands and titles, who fought on behalf of Aoife's father, the deposed king of Leinster in Ireland. I discovered through a Google search that Richard and Aoife were the parents of Isabel de Clare, who married William Marshal, one of medieval England's greatest knights and statesmen. Does anyone know of any other books focusing on Strongbow or Aoife?

The final book in this love-themed reading roundup is the best book I've read this year so far: Peony in Love by Lisa See. A ghost story, a historical fantasy, a family saga and a coming-of-age tale, the novel immersed me in the unfamiliar world of 17th-century China and captivated me with its beautifully told story.

The novel is set during a time of political and social upheaval in China, when thousands of women left their cloistered existences to pursue intellectual lives, writing and publishing their own work, before society forced them back into their family compounds. A woman's right to express herself is a major theme of the novel.

Peony is a 15-year-old aristocratic girl obsessed with the controversial opera, The Peony Pavilion. During a performance of the opera staged in her family's compound, she secretly meets and falls in love with a poet, Wu Ren. Locked in her room for her transgressions and to await her arranged marriage, Peony becomes so absorbed in writing her thoughts about the opera, she forgets to eat, and dies just before her scheduled wedding.

From there, the novel explores intricate Chinese beliefs about the afterlife as Peony roams the world as a hungry ghost, visiting Wu Ren and influencing his subsequent wives to continue writing about the opera. Peony's story mirrors The Peony Pavilion but also deviates from the opera in unexpected ways. She learns surprising, heartbreaking truths about the women in her own family, and ultimately finds a way to be remembered and honored as an individual.

Peony in Love was a hypnotic, strange fairy tale that required some suspension of disbelief to be enjoyed. I willingly followed the story where it led me, sometimes slowing my reading to savor the beautiful writing, sometimes speeding up in my impatience to discover what would come next. My grade: A+