18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More than just 'Historical Romance', January 4, 2005
This review is from: The Fool's Tale: A Novel (Hardcover)
This is a great novel about relationships, that just happens to be set in 12th century Wales. It is full of historical details that give a real feel to the time and place, but the importance is on the interaction between some really fun characters! I don't think it should be called a Historical Romance, it is not your typical 'Bodice Ripper'. The emphasis is not on the sex. You get to know the characters, and both love & hate them early on, and then they evolve and change, and suprise you. You then get to a point where you cannot put the book down, you need to know what happens next, and you think you might know, but you could be wrong....!
It's a really fun read, it is very sarcastic & witty at times, but also very entertaining to someone who really does like Historical Fiction, the research is there. I recomend it highly!
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An exciting, smart and involving novel, January 4, 2005
This review is from: The Fool's Tale: A Novel (Hardcover)
I don't generally read historical romances, so was doubtful when I picked up a pre-publication copy. But this is such a good novel -- filled with fascinating, complex characters; intricate plotting, and a good dollop of suspense and surprise -- that I wish there was a whole new genre term to describe it... something like, "Historical Literary Fiction," or "Libidinous Non-Contemporary Narrative Art." Anyway, it's a terrific read, and will make everybody -- those who read lots of historical fiction, and those who turn up their noses at it -- wonder about what they've been missing. Read it the next time you want to be kept up late, trying to find out what happens next.
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18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This book shows promise., April 14, 2005
This review is from: The Fool's Tale: A Novel (Hardcover)
I didn't like this book very much at first, but oddly, I finished it. I read the whole thing partly because 100 pages in, I was pretty bored so I glanced at the last few pages. I was surprised and relieved at where the book was headed, so I continued reading. The other reason I finished it is because despite its large flaws, this book is strangely compelling.
First, the problems. The scene where Noble explains to Isabel that Welsh men don't hit their wives. It wasn't bad in and of itself, but it was lifted almost directly from Sharon Kay Penman's "Here Be Dragons." I actually know quite a bit about medieval Welsh law, and though historical fiction authors seem to insist otherwise, this was in fact not the only interesting point of their legal system.
I found myself often wondering why she chose to make this historical fiction instead of just fiction. The customs she described seemed to be there only so she could drop some Welsh phrases. They weren't well integrated or even particularly important. Most infuriatingly, the author played too fast and loose with history, even for the genre. She invented two of the three main characters, admits it was impossible for one to exist, and completely changed the few historical events depicted. There's also no reason to think that the real Noble was anything like he was in the book, though there was a Welsh king of the same name in the 6th century with a similar personality. In reality, the book's Noble died a year before "The Fool's Tale" even begins. Why didn't she just make up the king's name, too, and put a fictional character in place of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth and stop trying for historical fiction? Having twisted shards of history didn't help the book, they were just distracting.
She crammed in too many political plots to properly focus on the characters, and focused on the characters too much to make the political plots seem like anything but an excuse to make the book longer. The cat-and-mouse game once the affair starts went on waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.
All my complaints aside, however, this book was not a disaster. When she hits a good scene, it's really good. She has a knack for dialogue, and I thought the actions of many characters (especially Gwirion) were realistic and sympathetic. She can really get into the psychology of a character without being too heavy-handed about it, though some of them got very tiresome. Isabel and Noble, I'm looking at you. At any rate, I enjoyed the court scene in which Gwirion is called upon to investigate the plantiff's claim, and, among other things, the beginning and end are really very good. This book isn't awful, it's simply a 500 page book that should've been 300 pages and was crammed into an innappropriate mold.
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