Bond Of Blood [Paperback]

Roberta Gellis (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Jove (July 1, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515082309
• ISBN-13: 978-0515082302
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #713,012 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Roberta Gellis has a varied educational background--a master's degree in biochemistry and another in medieval literature--and working history--10 years as a research chemist, many years as a free-lance editor of scientific manuscripts, and more than 40 years as a writer. She is married--to the same man for over 60 years (no mean feat in these days) and lives in Lafayette, Indiana, with her husband Charles and a lively Scottish terrier called Zoe. She has one child, Mark, who teaches Rhetoric (a fancy name for expository writing) at Kettering University in Michigan. Mark is married to Sandra and they have a lovely daughter, Elizabeth.

Gellis has been a successful writer of historical fiction, publishing over 25 meticulously researched historical novels since 1964. The best known of these are The Roselynde Chronicles (ROSELYNDE, ALINOR, JOANNA, GILLIANE, RHIANNON, and SYBELLE). The series has been reprinted many times since its first appearance in 1979, most recently in 2006. Gellis has also been the recipient of many awards, including the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books, the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur, The Romantic Times Award for Best Novel in the Medieval Period (more than once) and Lifetime Achievement Award for Historical Fantasy, as well as Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Acheivement Award.

More recently Gellis has ventured into other genres, starting with mythological fantasy (DAZZLING BRIGHTNESS, SHIMMERING SPLENDOR, ENCHANTED FIRE, BULL GOD, and THRICE BOUND). Most recently she has written historical fantasy, with a series of book coauthored by Mercedes Lackey set in Elizabethan times (THIS SCEPTER'D ISLE, ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, BY SLANDEROUS TONGUES, and AND LESS THAN KIND). Before that she was writing historical mysteries, a four-book series set in London and Oxford in 1139 (A MORTAL BANE, A PERSONAL DEVIL, BONE OF CONTENTION and CHAINS OF FOLLY) and one set in the Italian Renaissance in Ferrara (LUCREZIA BORGIA and the MOTHER OF POISONS).

Since Gellis is one of the early addicts to electronic readers---she purchased a RocketeBook way back in 1999---it is no surprise that she was eager to get her own out of print historical romances into electronic format. Cerridwen Press (http://www.cerridwenpress.com) has published the Heiress Series (THE ENGLISH HEIRESS, THE CORNISH HEIRESS, THE KENT HEIRESS, FORTUNE'S BRIDE, and A WOMAN'S ESTATE) as well as the Royal Dynasty Series (don't ask me about that, there isn't a royal or a dynasty in any of the four books---it was a notion of a long-ago agent) SIREN SONG, WINTER SONG, FIRE SONG, and A SILVER MIRROR. Cerridwen offers a variety of formats, one of which can be read by the Kindle and for those too firmly addicted to paper, the books are also available in a very nice Trade edition (but those are rather expensive).

I'm sorry I don't have any amusing anecdotes to relate, as recommended by the Profile, but a writer's life is really very quiet. Sometimes my neighbors ask my husband what has happened to me because they haven't seen me in such a long time. Depending on his humor of the moment, sometimes Charles tells them that I can't come outside because he keeps me chained to my computer---but that isn't true. He lets me get up once in a while.

Roberta Gellis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful,historical love story, April 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bond Of Blood (Paperback)

I loved all of Roberta Gellis' early books,especially the Roselynde series. Bond of Blood was an intricately woven story about Leah of Pembroke and Cain, Lord Radnor, the clubfooted son of the harsh Duke of Gaunt.Leah was a terrified 15 year old when forced into this match by her parents for political reasons. She was terrified of him but determined to obey her station in life. She gradually saw the softness and hurt that he kept hidden under a mask of brutality and she used every feminine wile at her fingertips to make him completely hers. Set against the backdrop of a fuedal England at war with itself, filled with historical details, a book to get lost in and transported to another time. [e-mail]

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Roberta Gellis' Second Book-- Nice Fat Historical Novel, December 28, 2002

By 

Sires "I enjoy mysteries, historical and proc... (Chesapeake, OH, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bond Of Blood (Paperback)

Bond of Blood was Roberta Gellis' second published book, first printed in hardcover by Doubleday in 1965. At that time there wasn't a historical romance genre. There was, however, a demand for fat historical novels with the emphasis on history which is what she wrote. However, Gellis also did some things that set her apart from many of the historical novelists writing then or since-- she tried to make the attitudes of the people she wrote about consistent with the period. You won't find her characters spouting off about equality for serfs or other attitudes that won't appear in the aristocracy for centuries to come. She does not concentrate deliberately on the unpleasant, but she does not hesitate to be a little more graphic about bodily functions that the average book written in the time.

This then is the story of a man who did not quite fit his time--personal circumstances have rendered him both hardier and more sensitive than many of his peers--and a woman (a girl really, she is 15 at the time of their betrothal) who struggles to work out what her place is in society and her marriage.

One of the things I found fascinating about my rereading of this book was the reactions of the two main characters seem psychologically realistic. Both of them were essentially abused children--although no one at the time would have considered their parents' actions to be "abuse"-- who developed various coping mechanisms for dealing with their situations.

A good early effort by an author who grew to be one of my favorite writers.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two of the most complex Roberta Gellis lovers inhabit, July 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bond Of Blood (Paperback)

this book. Unfortunately, because of the number of years since I last read it (about 10) I have forgotten the character's names. Although the hero of the story has accepted a match with the lady, he suspects her father of treachery and even as he comes to love her, wonders whose side she is really on. His wife, deeply in love with the only man to ever treat her kindly, tries to find a way to tell him she is loyal to him alone, without making him think she is treacherous by denying the bond of blood between her and her father. Both of them must deal with the medieval belief that a birth defect is a stigma of evil as he was born with a club foot. How the two manage to surmount these and other of life's pitfalls makes for one of Gellis's most intriging novels.