Customer Reviews

A Knight Like No Other

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

 

 

Queen Eleanor wasn't a woman who believe in staying in a `woman's place'. Queen to two countries, two kings, she often was seen dressed as a man, riding a horse astride. So it was not surprising she as patron of St. Jude' Abby, where women were taught to read, write and even fight.

Lady Avisa de Vere came to the cloistered abbey when she was barely two-years-old. There she was thrived in the freedom of learning. She knows more than one language, is encouraged to speak her ideas and is trained as a warrior. One of the most skilled fighters of the Abbey, Queen Eleanor calls upon her skills. She wanted Lady Avisa to secretly guard her Godson, Christian Lovell, to prevent him from reaching Canterbury where he is to attend a wedding. The political climate is about to heat up. Becket (the troublesome priest...lol) Bishop of Canterbury has returned and King Henry is back, and Eleanor doesn't want Christian caught in the middle of the two powerful men.

Soon Lady Avisa is having Christian "rescue" her from outlaws and entreat him to join a quest to save her sister, the diversion set up to keep him from Canterbury. Christian is puzzled by this woman who uses a sword like a man, while Avisa must deals with her confusion of the world outside the cloisters and her growing desire for Christian.

Jocelyn Kelley weaves a very imaginative tale that speaks to love, honor and ancient codes that bound women yet made them want to push beyond these imaginary lines. The story might have been strengthened with Christian's POV, this is essentially a woman's tale so I understand the author's choice to eschew this. It's a strong tale that should please Historical readers.
Highly recommended for Medieval fans.

St. Jude's Abbey is sponsored by Queen Eleanor. The women there are taught to read, write, and fight. Lady Avisa de Vere gave up her noble title for the status of "Sister" when she was but a child. After years of training, Avisa is now proficient with broadsword and bow. She helps train the new residents.

Everyone knows of the trouble between King Henry and Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Currently, the king is in Bayeaus. Queen Eleanor gives Avisa a secret mission. The queen's godson is Christian Lovell. He is on a journey to restore honor to his family name. He plans to trek for Canterbury. His brother, Guy, and his page, Baldwin, accompany him. The queen wants "Lady Avisa" to seek out Christian, persuade him to avoid Canterbury until the king returns to England, and guard him with her life. While doing so, Avisa must not let herself be connected to St. Jude's Abbey in any way.

Christian Lovell is a knight sworn to the service of King Henry "Curtmantle". His fondest wish is to cleanse the Lovell name of the dishonor brought on by his father. While en route to Canterbury, he "rescues" a damsel in distress. He has no idea that the damsel was sent to protect him. When Lady Avisa asks him to help rescue her sister, he agrees. He has never met such an enticing female, especially one that carries a broadsword by her side and welds it so well.

Avisa soon realizes that Christian has much courage and great honor. She finds herself desiring him in a way she cannot afford. And he is not making her resistance easy at all.

***** Author Jocelyn Kelley has created a wondrous tale of love and honor set among one of the most troubling times of the past. I found the story to be witty, fast paced, and non-stop entertainment. I highly recommend this author to all fans of the Historical Romance genre. Excellent! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

In the twelfth century, Queen Eleanor backs and funds St. Jude's Abbey, a special place where young women learn to read and write and are trained in armed combat. One such sister, perhaps the best fighter, is Avisa de Vere, an expert with the broadsword and bow, who instructs other recruits in their use.

Queen Eleanor arrives at St. Jude's Abbey with a task for Avisa to accomplish. She wants Avisa to guard her beloved godson Christian Lovell, who is on a quest to Canterbury accompanied by his brother and his page to clear his family name dishonored by his father. She is also to find a way to talk him out of going to Canterbury until his King returns from France. Christian "rescues" Lady Avisa from outlaws and soon finds his quest detoured into saving her sister though he is amazed with her broadsword skill even while he and she fall in love with one another.

The St. Jude's Abbey and the heroine make for a gender bending fun medieval romance. The story line is action packed with a fine male lead who is capable of taking care of himself and being a champion. However, Avisa, an adept with a sword or a bow, makes the tale fresh and unique with her skills. The suspense comes late, but fans will not be concerned due to the fine duel between the lead couple as to who will protect whom.

Harriet Klausner

I bought this book when I found it on my discount table at my local department store. If I'd realized that this book is actually written by Jo Ann Ferguson (the name Jocelyn Kelley is a pseudonym) I would have skipped right past it. I've already tried two books by her, and found them both to be unfinishable.

Unfortunately, this one was, too. It got off to a great start (how many books are there about female knights?) with a good historical backdrop that didn't feel too "textbooky" and action that made the reader feel like they're really there. The action was fast paced, and the prose flowing. The character development felt a bit lacking, but then, it was still early in the book. Maybe it picked up later. I don't know since I didn't get very far.

The problem was with the author's clumsy attempts at putting sexual tension into the story. It just felt so contrived. The hero and heroine have known each other for barely an hour, and when she starts to annoy him, he throws her to the ground and kisses her like a sex fiend to "shut her up". And she, of course, melts in his arms. Oh, please! How many times has this stupid, lame scenerio been used before? (Even once was too many!) Are there men who actually do this? If a man had ever tried to do that to me (even if my HUSBAND tried to do that to me while we're arguing), I'd smack him a good one. And probably knee him in the crotch if the man is a stranger.

It's cliched, contrived scenes like this that give romance novels a bad name. I'm very dissapointed that I wasted money on A KNIGHT LIKE NO OTHER, especially when the premise held such promise. If you're still determined to read this, borrow it from the library. Or better yet, skip it altogether.

Lady Avisa de Vere arrived at St. Jude's Abby when she is just 2 years old. There she has stayed and learned the knowledge of the sisters at this Abbey. This Abbey is a bit different. Queen Eleanor secretly created and funded this Abbey, where the women learn to read and write, more than one language and they are trained as a knight is to fight in sword battles as well as marital arts and archers. Lady Avisa is one of the instructors in sword fighting and is skilled enough to take down one of the Knights that the Queen brings with her when she visits to enlist Avisa in her service.

Queen Eleanor wants Lady Avisa to secretly guard her Godson and keep him away from the wedding he is traveling to attend in Canterbury. Things are about to get rather unstable in Canterbury as the Bishop of Canterbury has just returned and King Henry is also back on English soil. Christian "rescues" Lady Avisa from outlaws and soon finds his quest detoured into saving her sister, which is the diversion that was thought up to distract him.

One of the largest challenges that Lady Avisa faces is that she is brought up to be equal to Knights and doesn't understand why she can't act accordingly. She is also concerned about why she is so attracted to Christian and why he seemed to constantly be frustrated by her.

This is the first offering I have ready by this author and I was impressed. Thought some sections seemed to drag others whipped by and made me laugh. If someone is looking for a strong woman character in a medieval romance look no further.

The basis of the story: During the reign of Henry II, his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, founded the Abbey of St. Jude, where young women can, in addition to living a life of prayer and contemplation, learn the knightly skills of weaponry.

From this Abbey, expert swordswoman Avisa de Vere has been sent by the Queen to protect her godson, Christian Lovell, from the intrigue between the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett.

I thought the concept of women trained in the martial arts during the Middle Ages was interesting. Sadly, it was poorly executed in this book. The book plodded at times, and there was a fifty-page tangent which served little narratorial purpose other than to show that Avisa is a skilled fighter and a good leader.

I'm intrigued by the concept of the book, and am sticking with the series - for a while - in the hopes that the writing will improve. However, for this volume itself: don't bother. It's too poorly written to stand on its own.

I have to say first that I *adore* the premise of this book. It makes an incredibly realistic case for how a woman would wield a sword - and have "modern sensibilities" - back in medieval days. So many romance books put women into this time period with completely "wrong" attitudes for those days. Yes it may be hard for us modern women to understand the culture back then, but women who were born into it thought of it as normal.

Queen Eleanor in real life was *famous* for riding with her troops, for being very intelligent, a great strategist, a ruler in her own right. So with this role model, setting up an enclave to create her own group of loyal women, it makes a lot of sense. It is exactly what she would do - and the women in her care would grow up feeling the way she did about womens' rights. I very much like this aspect of the story. Kudos to Jocelyn.

So Avisa has grown up sheltered from the "normal medieval female life" and taught to be strong, brave, intelligent and in control. She is a teacher, she is used to a position of authority. She is good with a weapon. Then she is forced out into the "real world" and into contact with a knight. The resulting problems and issues are all quite believable. Again, many times romance novels try to do this and fail - but with the setup and background it works very well.

So why do I give this only four stars (and really would go for 3.5 if I could)?

It really comes down to poor editing. There were numerous problems here that a good editor could easily have cleaned up. There are words that are misused. There are sentences that are poorly constructed (so that the "he" of one sentence refers to the wrong person based on the previous sentence, for example). "Unusual words" that most readers wouldn't know are introduced without context or meaning.

There are numerous plot holes. Yes, I realize romance novels expect you to suspend disbelief - but some of these strain credulity that a well laid out plot of the Abbey would forget about certain key issues.

Perhaps my biggest issue is with the interaction of Avisa and Guy. He is a knight on a quest to restore his family honor. And the moment he rescues a woman in distress he begins feeling her up??? His behavior is VERY un-knight like. She was brought up to have strong self respect. She should have punched him in the head! Women in medieval times did NOT let strange men manhandle them. I actually was hoping in the first part of the book that the "hero" was going to be someone to rescue Avisa from Guy. It was troubling to realize that Guy *was* the hero. He acted more as a moral-less lecher.

It might be one thing if he was portrayed as a "dashing rogue" who had no honor. But he was supposed to be a knight ACTIVELY striving to bring honor to his family! And he was raised by a father who was the epitome of honor, too. It left a very bad taste in my mouth. I didn't want Avisa to end up with him.

I will move on to the subsequent books because, again, I adore the premise and the realism in the situation. I can only hope the author did a better job with the character interaction, basic editing and plot development.

As a final minor note for anyone reading this book - in the beginning Avisa draws arrows from a quiver on her back, i.e. over her shoulder. I'm pretty sure research has shown that real medieval archers did NOT do this - that this was a very unnatural way to carry arrows at the time. They carried them in their belt for easy access. Far easier to grab and use that way.

Avisa was raised at St. Jude's Abbey, and taught knightly skills, which she learned so well that she's now teaching others, and she expects that she'll continue training and teaching for the foreseeable future. But the Queen arrives and reveals her intentions in setting up the abbey, and sends Avisa to protect a favorite godson by keeping him from the conflict between the king and the Archbishop in Canterbury.

Said godson, Christian, is eager to prove his bravery and erase the stain on his family's name after his father was branded a coward.

The Good:
The concept. I love the whole idea of St. Jude's Abbey, where women are educated and trained as knights, at a time when both were unheard of.
The conflict. What Avisa needs is in direct opposition to what Christian needs. There's no contrived misunderstanding between them--they quite simply want opposite things.
The character development. Avisa is so out of her element in the world away from the abbey, and that comes through very clearly as she tries to adapt while chafing at the restrictions imposed on women in society. Christian's desperate drive to succeed in proving his bravery is likewise very clear.

The Bad:
This is very much Avisa's story, but I missed getting to know Christian better.
The action and suspense take a while to get moving.

The Verdict:
A Knight Like No Other is a wonderful combination of history, romance, and adventure, and I'm looking forward to reading more books about the women of St. Jude's Abbey.

I know that this won't be to helpful but, this has to be the best romance book that I have read! the characters become almost real in your mind. It is just an amazing book that you just have to read!