Customer Reviews

Emerald Knight

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lord Wolfram (Wolfe) and Lady Ginevra were betrothed to each other as children. This knowledge of their inevitable marriage causes a mixture of resistance as well as interest as they mature into young adults.

Despite her outward antagonism, Gin develops a crush on Wolfe and starts attempting to remake herself into what she feels he wants in a wife, but Wolfe merely shrugs her aside each time.

Wolfe and Gin live separately as the eight-year older Wolfe waits for his child-bride to grow up. Wolfe buries himself in wars, tournaments and women while Gin allows her mother to groom her into a wife, worthy of Wolfe. She thinks she's certain to please him --- until she arrives at Wolfe's family home and sees him again for the first time in years.

Emerald Knight was a difficult one for me. I'm a big fan of Michelle Pillow's books but so far have read only her paranormals and this is the first straight historical I've read from her. The book was very well written with excellent characterization and depth. The plot was intricate and thorough. Yet I was left with a slight feeling of dissatisfaction that required some thought on my part to understand.

My only problem with this story is that some actions of Wolfe are, to me, un-heroic. Although completely period correct for the setting of the story, I had personal issues with them and it made me less sympathetic to Wolfe overall.

I think it's a great book and will especially appeal to people that like historical romances. Michelle does her research very thoroughly and I didn't find much of anything that set off my alarms of being inaccurate. Overall, a great story by a great storyteller.

Maura
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

I loved it. It was great to be transported back through time to meet her characters. A childhood crush, playful pranks, and a promised marriage all payed off in one great story. I found myself wanting the hero and herione to consumate the marriage as badly as they did and really enjoyed descriptions of their marriage bed. I recommended this book to many friends and they were not let down.

wow! This is my first time reading Michelle Pillow novel and I'm not disappointed! I love historical romance and this one hit the spot! :)

the love story is sweet. And M Pillow is a good writer. It's about two people who were destined, since infancy, to wed to unite two aristocratic families. They got married about 1/3 of the book if I am not mistaken, and the story ends with them being happily married, Finally. I really like the opening chapter where Wolfe meets his infant bride to be. I don't really have a problem with his cheating,it was done before they consummate their marriage. (but I don't have a problem with cheating in the books in general, if I can still see that the hero loves the h regardless.) Neither with the relationship development or the pace, as other reviewer has mentioned. What really bothers me is that there were so many misunderstandings like in the old bodice rippers. The kind of misunderstandings that make the characters look stupid or immature. Just one example - how can he not know or be certain that she loves him, seeing her anguish and sufferings? It's not that she tries to hide it, well maybe a few times (which is also stupid), but she shows it most of the times. I understand that authors need to create conflicts to keep readers interested or to lengthen the story. But I appreciate real problems, let him be the jerk because he is a jerk or he at first didn't love the heroine. I don't care about PC, I can take the mean or cruel hero. But I can not stand stupid hero. Don't let it be that he is this way, she is this way because of some stupid misunderstandings or because of someone's meddling. Here comes the most meddlesome brother I have ever encountered in all romance novels I have read. He interfered with their wedding night which leads to the biggest problem the couple encountered. even some few years later, he meddled in a very horrible way with their marriage. All in the names of protecting his sister of course. He regretted it but never confessed to her about what he has done. I had to keep on shaking my head. All in all I don't regret buying the book. It's my first time reading this author, and it won't be the last. I am always on the look out for new(to me) authors to try and Pillow will be on my list. I just hope that her other books are free of stupid misunderstandings.

I'm a big fan of this author, but this book falls far short of her usual books. I thought this book was really boring, so if your thinking of forking over the big bucks for this book, you've been warned.

I am a devout fan. I buy every book of Michelle's and have have never been disappointed. This one fell a little flat for me. She had some great moments where the characters connected; a cute childhood prank and a spunky young heroine who didn't take any crap.
However, when they meet when they are older their relationship just doesn't work. The story is admirable in that it tries to show a relationship that develops over more then just a week, but instead the pace of the relationship development is too slow and when sparks do hit she has no reason to feel anything for him but the sexual attraction (he has shown himself to be a cheating cad) and her feelings of connection just due to the fact that she grew up knowing that he would be her husband.
Anyone who was as poor of a communicator and really did just ditch his wife without a word twice would not be welcomed with an "oh well" let's forget about it attitude that she projected.
Some parts were good, premise good, but overall I found myself skimming parts of the book (which I rarely do).

Wolfram was pledged to marry Ginevra when they are very young. He doesn't really want to wed her but he will do his duty. Of course, she had big dreams as well. She claims she wants to travel and she acts as though she is just one of the guys. So this story started out very promising. Then we are treated to brief glimpses of their lives then huge jumps, years, of other things taking place. Wolfe and Gin do act as children when they are younger, however he continues to act as someone that doesn't really act like the typical alpha H of medieval romances. Wolfe came across as completely shallow and someone that had to be directed and advised on how to behave w/ Gin. He still exhibits some of this shallowness in his reaction to discovering what his wife has gifted him w/ towards the end of the story and how quickly he was to forgive her as well.

Apparently Wolfe has some BDSM tendencies, but these are never revealed in this story and the other scenes of the characters coming together got a bit boring. Gin's older brother, Robert, interferes several times throughout this story and it just made Wolfe appear weaker because of it. I know why he believed him, but I just wanted him to put some of his so called knowledge of women to use! After all, he appeared to get around a LOT so surely he would have picked something up.

Gin wasn't much better. I kept wondering what happened to that feisty, childlike woman who played jokes and pranks on Wolfe when they were younger. Yes, she wanted to be a proper noble wife, but I find it hard to believe that she could completely bury her natural tendencies. She had opportunities to enact some of that and when I thought she would at one point, in Wolfe's tent, she didn't!! I also found it hard to believe that Wolfe could bury his BDSM element as well. It would seem that neither of them could truly be themselves in the end. They didn't hold true to their inner selves, and they seemed to change to quickly for other things and were too trusting to boot.

I kept feeling that when Wolfe and Gin would have a conversation where their inner depths would be explored and we would get somewhere, but instead I felt like it was just skimming the surface and I was left wondering how these two could possibly love each other. They hardly spent much time together and those conversations of getting to know each other . . . weren't played out in the pages of this story, at least not for me.

Overall it wasn't a bad story, (I got bored if you must know - but I finished it) but it just felt like it needed to be tightened up and the whole villain thing could have been played out better. This is a medieval story and while some things sounded right for the time other things didn't ring true or make a lot of sense to me. I didn't like the feeling that characters would just pop in and out w/ no rhyme or reason. These characters were more like a plot device that would quickly be discarded once they had served their purpose w/ no explanation for their disappearance and I found that a bit frustrating as I wanted some resolution for some of these characters.