The Morning Gift [Mass Market Paperback]

Diana Norman (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• ASIN: B000J31USY
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic and realistic medieval, December 15, 2004

By 

IRRS (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morning Gift (Paperback)

Inner flap blurb time:

"A Norman heiress was a chattel to be sold in marriage to the highest

bidder. If one husband died she was up for sale again.

Only the first of Matilda de Risle's husbands gives her anything

back. His is the customary Saxon morning gift -- the present to a

wife if her lord finds her sexually pleasing on their wedding night.

Matilda's morning gift was Dungesey in the Fens..."a bolt hole my,

dear somewhere to hide should trouble come." And come it does. As the

war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda in the 1140s tears

England apart, Matilda de Risle has to fight for her land, her son's

safety--and her own life. Matilda, snobbish, bossy, inquisitive,

realistic, competitive, and tough, is at once a powerful and

endearing central character in Diana Norman's splendid new novel of

medieval English life. It is set in a barbarous civil war and

is by turns violent and very funny. Above all it fills the pages with

real people, with the scents of the Fens in all seasons, and tells in

the end a heartwrenching love story."

This blurb really tells why I've enjoyed the two Diana Norman books

I've tried so far. The characters are real. Sometimes noble and

wonderful and sometimes pettish and jealous. You might get mad with

them but you can understand why they act as they do. She has a

delicious, subtle sense of humor which had me laughing out loud

several times.

Her research appears to be meticulous but is never hurled at us in

chunks just to prove she did it. Plus it's not too disgusting in

portraying medieval life. And I love the way she doesn't hit you over

the head and take you by the hand to lead you to these facts. She

also makes religion an integral part of the story.

Things which may put some people off. The heroine is fourteen when

the story starts, not unusual for medieval child brides. It spans a

20 year period of time. The heroine is married three times before she

finally hooks up with the hero. It's more a historical novel with a

romance threaded through it then a true romantic historical.

Finding out about life in the Fens, the marshland around Ely in

Cambridgeshire, was fascinating. How they lived, what they ate, how

they hunted and wove reeds to provide things needed for day to day

life. And watching the clash between Norman and Saxon showed how the

two sides were still settling in. It's a detailed snapshot

of the era and one I thoroughly enjoyed. A-

Here is the full sentence from which the blurb quote is taken:

"I just wanted, my dear, for you to have a bolthole, somewhere to

hide should trouble come, where you and our children will always be

safe and hidden and have plenty to eat. I know it seems an odd little

gift to you and it will take time to get used to its people--these

are the true English and nobody is odder than they--but I shall feel

happier that you have it."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Panoramic Romantic History, March 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Morning Gift (Hardcover)

A wonderful story of survival amidst a political war torn backdrop. It is more romantic history than historical romance. It is not a happy ending; it is a fitting ending to a story filled with strong will and strong emotion. It leaves you happy for the heroine. Unforgettable!

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book!, September 9, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Morning Gift: A Novel of Twelfth-Century England (Hardcover)

This is one of my all time favorite books. I have reread it many times with a great deal of pleasure. It concerns the life of a young Norman heiress named Matilda who is sold off to one husband after another during the violent times of the civil war between King Steven and the Empress Maud. Matilda's first husband presents her with a "morning gift" after their wedding night. She is dismayed at this display of lusty feeling on his part and mortified to think anyone might imagine she is capable of the same feelings. Then she is further dismayed to find that this gift is a swampy bit of fenland in East Anglia where no one speaks her proper Norman French. But it is a rich land filled with sassy, dependable people and it's a great place to hide in times of trouble and trouble is surely coming!