The Knight And The Rose (Berkley Sensation) [Paperback]

Isolde Martyn (Author)

Book Description

Series: Berkley Sensation | Publication Date: November 4, 2003

A vibrant tapestry of love, betrayal, and political intrigue-inspired by a real-life medieval court case.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Martyn's first novel, The Lady and the Unicorn, won the RITA Award for Best First Book from the Romance Writers of America, so readers will understandably be eagerly awaiting this follow-up. In 14th-century England, Lady Johanna FitzHenry is stuck in an arranged marriage to Sir Fulk de Enderby, who delights in beating her. Given the laws that entitle him to do so, Johanna's only chance at freedom is to find a man to claim in court that she married him first. Enter valorous Geraint, a troubled fellow on the run whom Johanna only knows as Gervase de Laval, supposedly a scholar. For a price, he is willing to pretend to be her first husband. Unfortunately, the two do not get along a problem, since they must persuade the court that they're in love. Then Gervase discovers that Johanna has renounced sex and love because of Fulk's violent treatment of her, and it becomes Gervase's personal mission to liberate her in every way. Johanna is the kind of medieval "women's libber" often found populating historical fiction, and her oil-and-water exchanges with Gervase are sprightly fun. But there are flaws. The period dialect tends to grate on modern ears and the truth concerning what Gervase is really up to, involving King Edward, comes so late in the drawn-out tale that the historical half of "historical romance" becomes incidental. By the time Gervase confesses his true identity and motivation for concealing it, Johanna may still care, but readers no longer will.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In 1322, Lady Johanna Fitzhenry attempts to escape her brutal husband by visiting her ill father, but her mother concocts a convoluted scheme to pretend that Johanna was secretly married to someone else first. The "someone else" is a man posing as a scholar who is being blackmailed into helping because he's on the run from enemy soldiers. British author Martyn's busy plot involves the imposter and Johanna's evolving love, the various ruses they must use to convince the authorities that they were indeed previously married, a separation while he goes off to war in France and she becomes a lady-in-waiting to the queen, and Johanna's discovery of his true identity. RITA Award-winner Martyn's English medieval historical setting and fascinating court intrigue are more authentic than those of most romances, but they do slow down the love story. Readers who prefer a mere backdrop for sexy romance will be disappointed, but those who like lots of social and political historical detail will be pleased. Mary K. Chelton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425193055
• ISBN-13: 978-0425193051
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,146,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars What do you mean this is a romance?, August 3, 2002

By 

Anna (Knoxville, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Knight and the Rose (Paperback)

Overall, I was disappointed in this book. The plot was very intriguing. A medieval wife seeks deliverance from her abusive marriage. In an era where the man has all the rights, Johanna's options are limited. If she is to escape the cruelty of her husband, Sir Fulk, she must dare a dangerous scheme. If she can prove that she had contracted with another before she was betrothed to Sir Fulk, she may find her escape.

Enter Gervase. Forced into her scheme, he is torn between two duties... the rebel cause in which he is involved and that of the Lady Johanna. Reluctantly, he agrees to swear that he had plighted his troth to Johanna before she had married Sir Fulk. What follows is true love between the two.

This book is very well written. The plot is interesting. The historical facts are accurate. My disappointment lies in that the romance was dull and almost a second thought to the plot. I found this to be more of a historical novel with some romance as opposed to a historical romance. If you simply want to read a good historical novel, then this is a sure bet. But if you are clamoring for a true romance, then you may disappointed as I was.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is what a medieval romance should be., March 18, 2002

By 

venetia67 (San Bruno, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Knight and the Rose (Paperback)

I'm horrible at writing plot summaries, so I'll leave that to someone else. I'm a voracious reader and thus far this is the best medieval romance I've had the pleasure of reading. Nothing else comes close. The plot, romance, wit and wealth of characters are everything I could ask for. The nuances of daily life are so well woven into the story that if I didn't know better I would say the author actually lived in England during the 14th century. A keeper.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Should it be renamed 'The Blight Made Me Doze'?, April 2, 2006

By 

M. A. Bechaz "bookaholic" (Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Knight And The Rose (Berkley Sensation) (Paperback)

I quite enjoyed the first chapter or two of this book. But from then on it began to dawdle off downhill in the most tedious way, going on and on and on....

Aargh!

The main two characters in this book are symbolic of the cause of almost all the problems in the world right now: SILLY PEOPLE CONSTANTLY FIGHTING OVER NOTHING! I got sick of them really quickly. Honestly, I hate it when grown ups fight like three year olds. He was a trained fighter, she was a noblewoman...surely they should have had some sense of decorum and propriety, not to mention personal discipline, especially given that both their futures were on the line!

Also, the standard of writing in this book was definitely sub-par. The author seemed reluctant to use punctuation, and even more so to use it correctly...it wasn't uncommon for a sentence to stretch for five lines without even a comma in it to break it up. The writing was choppy, narrative skipped from character to character so much it was often difficult to know whose viewpoint you were seeing the story from, and the exchanges of dialogue between characters did not flow like a normal conversation would. (It was like a talkfest between self-obsessed bimbos who don't listen to each other.) The effort the writer went to in doing her historical research was wasted by the characters just not being believable in their settings. And the story just went on and on...450 pages in all. All the important stuff could have been said in 250 pages, and it would have made for a much better book that wasn't so cluttered by painful filler.

I can't believe this writer has won a writing award (for another book). Man, do they give those things away in cereal boxes or something? I expected better writing than this from an award winner, especially given that she's an Aussie like me. I like to think that we Australians can write pretty well...boy has this put a dent in my national pride!

Furthermore, there were logic gaps in the storyline. Like when one of the characters, Johanna, who has been married before, is somehow completely ignorant of marriage traditions such as banns...surely she would already know about all this from personal experience if she had gone through it before?

The fact that this was (very loosely) based on a real historical story intrigued me. In the hands of a competent writer it might have been absolutely wonderful. But in the hands of this writer...look, I've read worse books, but not too many of them. To put it flatly, this was a yawnfest. When books are good, I can't put them down, and inevitably read them within a day or two. But this took me MONTHS to get through. I kept putting it down so I could go off and read other, better books. I got through about forty or fifty other books before I finished this one! I just couldn't commit very much time to something I didn't particularly enjoy.

But the joke's on me. I bought another one of her books at the same time as I bought this one. So the writer has made money off me for both of those books regardless of whether or not she deserved to! Rats!