Customer Reviews

Shadowheart

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A lot of the negative reviews for this book were written in the spirit of postmodern political correctness, and that's really a shame. Fiction should challenge our beliefs about what's right and wrong, what's high and low. Think of Nabokov's "Lolita" or Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" (which also turns on a quasi sado-masochistic relationship that begins with a rape). Kinsale's "Shadowheart" should be seen in this light.

I, too, couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw the rough-stuff, but I knew that Kinsale is too good a writer to do this gratuitously. After thinking a bit, I understood why she had made Allegretto a masochist: what better way to show us a thoroughly corrupt man who despises himself and all the world? His outer beauty masks a wasteland of inner ugliness.

How to reclaim such a miserable creature? Kinsale's solution is inspired. Elena's sadism offers Allegretto an avenue toward repentence and salvation. Her sexual humblings purge him - much as medieval monks would purge their sins through self-flagellation. Allegretto is not a masochist in the sense that he delights in pain for its own sake - only in the just punishment that pure and innocent Elena administers. Allegretto's childhood, we learn, had been terrorized by a father who tortured him without so much as scratching his perfect hide; it's fitting that his righteous child-bride should cut Allegretto's flawless skin with her claws. But her bites and scratches aren't really vicious, and Allegretto's submission isn't all about suffering. As their relationship matures, Allegretto achieves a kind of purity, becoming martyrlike in his efforts to spare Elena pain, disillusionment and eternal damnation. Only when he has passed through a purgatory of self-denial, loss and loneliness does he deserve the happy ending that Kinsale rewards him with. This book is leagues ahead of the usual romance fare so it's not surprising that many readers "don't get it." Readers familiar with better fiction will understand.

After reading 'the shadow and the star', I thought I'd never pick up another Kinsale book. But a friend convinced me (read nagged and threatened with bodily harm) that I just *had* to give 'Shadowheart' a try.
I don't regret it.
This book isn't perfect. The hero's point of view is barely explored, the heroine's age doesn't always match her actions, and some character changes are a bit too abrupt and unexplained. Still, all this disappears in face of the one clear strength of this book: the heroine. Elena is kind , principaled and sweet, but, to Mrs. Kinsale's credit, she is flexible, intelligent and strong none the less. She stands up for herself on matters she finds important, but doesn't do it in a childish or ridiculous way; a great (and all too rare) advantage in a romance heroine.
Allegreto is a fascinating and mysterious character, a murderer who thought himself beyond redemption, and suddenly finds himself in a situation which isn't in his control. My one (major) qualm with him is that he's too mysterious. There's very little of his POV, and the reader doesn't really get to know why he falls in love with Elena or why he yields to her the way he does.
That leads me to the dominant/submissive part of their relationship. Unlike some reviewers, I liked it, and, more importantly, I found that it fit very well into the story, and created a balance of power between the young and fairly innocent Elena and the too-powerful Allegreto, which might not have been achieved had their relationship been a 'regular' one.
A last point is the important part that religion took place in this book. I'm not a Christian, and I usually skip or suffer through the 'preachy' parts in books. Here, however, I found that the theme of sin and redemption was very well handled, adding a very deep and touching aspect to the love between the two characters.

It's been a long draught for Kinsale fans. I believe I heard rumours of a crippling writers-block. Well, the dam must have broken, but because she is back and better than ever! This is one of THE MUST-READS of this Spring. The book is a marvellous tour de force for the returning author and sure will quickly win back old fans and make new!

I love heroes that are alpha (strong, dominant personalities), but the more complex, dark ones are the Gamma rogues - the males that are outside of society, that chew up the Alpha males and spit them out as a pastime, men in the genius Anne Stuart's Bad Bad Boys vein. Stuart is the Queen of the dark and deadly male, but Kinsale is shaking the leg of throne with Allegreto. He is a brilliant creation that leaps off the pages. A trained assassin, he is determined to regain his rightful place in the Italian Principality of Monteverde - and he does not care what he has to do to achieve his aim or whom he uses. And in reaching his goal, he sees Lady Elena, the lost Monteverde Princess as the perfect pawn, thus sealing her fate.

Elena is returning to Monteverde, betrothed to the man now running Monteverde. Her ship is overtaken and captured by pirates - lead by none other than Allegreto. She is first his prison, then later forced to wed him. Captive, lover, wife, Elena is naturally furious, as he is a hard man, nearly cruel, but flashes of moments when he displays a tenderness toward her begins to cause her to look part the killer veneer and see the man - the real man there - a man driven.

Take a killer and making him a hero is, as they say, "a hard row to hoe". Anne Stuart did it in her brilliant "Moonrise", a book that haunts me years after putting it down. Kinsale now does it with "Shadow Heart". It is amazing the craft and magic both writers breathe into these hardened men, yet make the women love them for what they are - just as the readers will.

Kinsale's love for this story shines, and like a master storyteller of old around the fireside, she weaves a tale that mesmerises, compels and leaves you breathless.

You may want to buy three copies of this book - 1) to read more than once 2) to give to your best friend - she will love you for it and 3) to put on your keeper shelf and treasure!!

Shadowheart wasn't quite what I expected it to be. After reading the reviews at Amazon and B&N, I thought it would be a lot darker, more erotic in nature. But it looks as though PERHAPS the reviewers were overreacting a little bit to the so-called deviant sex in the book.

I can't say I particularly liked the book, but I also didn't dislike it. It's a nice story - key word there 'story'. It was kind of like a fairytale...not one of those cheesy, sanitized children's versions, but a real one with darkness and evil and a moral. The book was long and tedious at times, with a lot of wasted space on inane events. But overall, it was a fairly interesting storyline. There were just a lot of things I took issue with.

I think one of the critical errors of the books is the way Kinsale handled the POVs. The first 250+ pages (approximately) are told strictly from Elena's POV. You get no sense of Allegretto other than through Elena's eyes, no insight into his character through his POV. Then suddenly halfway through the book she slips into his POV for a short while. After that, the book is still mostly Elena, but once in a while, you get a glimpse of Allegretto's thoughts, just not enough. Allegretto is such a complicated character, who does things that are unexpected and unexplained. The book would have been served more if she had used his POV more, and it certainly would have worked out better if she had not ignored him for the first half of the book. Focusing so much on Elena kept the readers from connecting with Allegretto and understanding his character.

Another issue with the story is that it is supposedly directly connected to another book, in which Allegretto is first introduced. The plot of that book apparently deals with the time in Monteverde when the revolution began. Kinsale does a poor job of relaying the history of the fictional place in the beginning of the book. For readers who did not read this earlier book, you're left a bit out in the wind as to the situation, the events, and other aspects that would have made things clearer. Kinsale fell into the trap many authors do in assuming that if you are reading this book then you read the other and therefore don't need explanations. It just made things confusing for a while.

Issue 3 (and it's 3 sub-issues)...ah, the big S&M issue. The first comment I have to make here is: good grief, if readers got all freaked out about what they read in this book, I'd hate to see what would happen if they saw some truer S&M. Because though at it most elemental, what happens in this book would be considered sadomasochism, it is hardly true S&M. I'd venture to say that anyone in that realm would say it was barely S&M. The extent of it in the book involves some biting and the use of fingernails. That's all. No paddles, no whips, no tools of any kind. Just the biting and use of fingernails. Yes, the sex was violent and used pain liberally, but it wasn't hardcore. It just wasn't the pretty stuff of typical romance novels. If anything, I'd say the book had more of a FemDom (female domination) aspect than an S&M one - though I suppose the two are in reality heavily intertwined.

The issue with the S&M element lies not with its existence, but with how Kinsale presented it. Which leads to sub-issue one: Elena's age. In the beginning of the book, she is 17 years old (this is a historical after all, females are generally young). But she is an innocent young girl with no worldly knowledge. Then suddenly she is a FemDom who inflicts pain. There's no transition, no learning process for her. She's just suddenly a Dominatrix. It doesn't work and leads to an element of disbelief because the reader has a hard time accepting that she would know about any of these issues without some sort of learning process. There should have been a transition, with Elena gradually discovering the elements of pain and control.

Sub-issue 2 in this area relates to the POV issue. Since Kinsale does not use Allegretto's POV very much, and not at all for the first half of the book, the reader gets no insight into his actions. Why does he allow Elena to dominate him? Why does he submit? Why does he enjoy the pain she inflicts? Allegretto is built up as this true Alpha male who likes to be in control, who has no feelings and kills without remorse. Then he lets Elena do what she does to him, and the reader is given only small crumbs as to his inner thoughts and reasoning. Like the issue with Elena's age, this also fosters disbelief. How is the reader supposed to accept his actions without any kernels as to why he allows it? You get a slight impression now and then that he is allowing it as his penance for all the sins he has committed in his lifetime, but you never get a true insight into his character. It was just really hard to accept his submissiveness when you aren't given much insight into his character.

Sub-issue 3...and this one is more just a personal preference, than a real issue probably. But pretty much every single sexual scene in the book relied on the pain/pleasure - S&M aspect. There was hardly ever any gentleness between them. I had no problem with the S&M elements, but I thought there should not have been such a heavy reliance on it. I had a hard time accepting the love between them when their only interactions involved dominating and causing pain. It was like their bond depended solely on pain and domination. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that; it is probably a true element to some real S&M practitioners, but for a main-stream romance novel, it didn't quite work.

The love between them overall was hard to comprehend. It's built upon a typical historical romance premise of kidnapper/abductee...the whole victim falls for her capturer thing. It's a little too typical. Aside from that, you get no understanding of why Allegretto loves her and why Elena accepts who he is (after she complains about it for most of the book). I just did not feel the connection between them. They are just supposed to love each other. But most of the time, they just seemed like 2 characters who liked to have unorthodox sex. Yet Elena said numerous times that she would sacrifice going to Heaven for him. I didn't buy it.

Which leads to the last issue with the book - and again this is a personal preference one - is the very heavy reliance on religion. One of the main themes of the book is sin and redemption. For a true atheist like me, it made me want to roll my eyes half the time. But on a more general religious aspect...both characters claim to be Catholics who believe in sin and heaven and hell, and all that. They want to confess their sins and be redeemed, be 'good' Catholics. Yet both characters engaged in pagan practices and never seemed to have any qualms about it. Every other action they committed was intertwined with their religious beliefs, but their pagan practices were ignored and accepted. That seemed a bit wrong to me.

Okay...well, after all that...Shadowheart was a so-so book. Too many things about it bothered me to make me like it more. I often found myself enjoying the 'plot' of the book (where Monteverde is freed from its violent oppression) more than the characters and the supposed romance. Still, the story was long and tedious. I kept putting it down to take a break to do something fun. I had to work a bit to make it through the book. But it was an interesting story. And while I applaud Kinsale for delving into non-traditional sexual practices, I wish she would done it more realistically and explored the characters psyches more. In the end, the book has its virtues and it's a curious read, but I don't think I'd want to pay $8 for it. Luckily I got it for a buck.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

Seventeen years old, Elayne of Italian descent, lived in the forest of Savernake, in the fifth year of the reign of King Richard II. Elayne has gorgeous dark long hair with unusual violet-blue colored eyes...
Raised by her sister, Cara, both who lived under the protection of Lady Melanthe Countess of Bowland, Elayne's Godmother. Elayne is a simple, happy Christian girl, who had a tendency towards spells and magic. This was a constant concern of her family. The devils work, people believed. Elayne, was a dreamer, who thought herself in love with Raymond de Clare a knight in Lord John of Lancaster's service. Little cat, that was Raymond's pet name for Elayne, he is an arrogantly handsome peacock. She has made a love charm to make Raymond fall madly in love with her, so she thinks. Elayne was waiting for Raymond to request her hand-in-marriage, but he later announces to be marrying another. Broken hearted, Elayne's Godmother Lady Melanthe, sends her on a pilgrimage to Rome, to become more polished and refined. She also finds out, that she is the last unmarried princess of Monteverde blood, and will be married at the end of her journey to her families sworn enemy, Franco Pietro from the house of Riata. Little did Elayne know, that this journey into darkness, would forever change her soul...

Allegreto Della Navona, is an exiled illegitimate son from the house of Navona. His family was overthrown and cast out of Monteverde by Franco Pietro. Allegreto is now, so full of hatred and contempt, he will stop at nothing to usurp what he has lost, not even if it means selling his soul to the devil... Allegreto, has the ship Elayne is traveling on waylaid and brought to his private island fortress, high upon the cliffs. The first time Elayne sees Allegreto, she envisions her ideal dark angel on earth. What she finds out, is more like Lucifer made real, the lord of light fallen down to perfect darkness in the flesh. Elayne nicknames him, Raven, because of his long black hair, dark deadly eyes and a body of a harden killer. Allegreto displays of power and magic scare and enthralls Elayne. Allegreto, also has a nickname for Elayne, Hell-Cat. He sees her not as a sweet innocent soul, but an embodiment of sin and fire ready to unleash. The erotic obsession between Elayne and Allegreto throughout this book is dark and unholy.

You will find yourself turning the pages unknowingly. Engrossed in a tale of dark sensuality and the poignant message of redemption, that is...SHADOW HEART...

This is not a frou-frou historical romance. In fact, it can be rather uncomfortable reading. Other reviewers have mentioned the S/M sex. It is not gratuitous, however, but a rather integral to the characters of Allegreto and Elayne. Allegreto is fundamentally damaged from a horrific childhood, raised to be an assassin and kill without conscience. Only through Elayne's dominance is he able to begin to heal. Elayne is a young woman betrayed, with a future arranged by others. She is able to reassert some control over her life in her physical relatioship with Allegreto.

Kinsale apparently dealt with several years of writer's block before finishing this book. It had to be a most difficult book to write, as it is sometimes difficult to read, and I expect that Allegreto and Elayne took on a life of their own early on. It is well worth the investment of time on her part and on the reader's, however. I would recommend it to anyone looking for some substance to their historical romances.

I am hoping that Matteo's story will follow.

Laura Kinsale is one of my favorite authors, and my expectations were sky-high for Shadow Heart. I opened the book and started reading with both anticipation and trepidation: anticipation because I finally had a new Kinsale to read instead of thumbing and re-reading my old favorites, trepidation because I knew there was no way she could live up to my impossible expectations.

Instead I was shocked to find that she'd exceeded them. The story is complex, and the characters even more so. Allegretto is beautiful, powerful and almost irreparably damaged by his brutal childhood. Elena is naive and young, yet incredibly strong.

Everything that happens in this book, each turn of the characters' development, just feels right. I notice that several people find the S&M in the book distasteful. Personally, I'm not a fan of books that use S&M for tittilation either. But in Shadow Heart, it seems inevitable, indeed a very natural outgrowth of the life Allegretto went through and the character he developed. It's really a credit to Kinsale's writing ability that she made something I don't find particular erotic in real life (pain in pleasure) into something very sexy on paper. Nobody else has done that, and I've dabbled a bit in that genre.

It's sometimes a difficult book to work through. Kinsale doesn't always spell things out for us, and uses some medieval terminology without any awkward attempts to break into the story to explain what they mean. The setting is extremely detailed. The people are truly human and keep in character, which means they're sometimes irritating and don't do quite what you expect (or want) them to. And the book is huge. But I think it's a much richer experience because of it. One of my main beefs with most romance novels is the feeling I get that I'm being spoonfed everything; rare indeed is the novel that requires me to actually think, or, Heaven forfend, reach for a dictionary. This book made me do both.

So once again, I doff a metaphorical hat at Ms. Kinsale, and thank her for the best romance novel I've read in years.

Laura Kinsale is an amazing writer. Every single one of her books that I've read has been complex, completely original and compelling. Shadowheart is no exception. Not for the timid reader, this book is extremely dark. The hero is one of the most tormented I've ever encountered in a romance, and his salvation goes along an extremely twisted path. The heroine initially seems young and guileless, but grows immensely but believably throughout the course of the story. Bravo to Laura Kinsale for her courage in bringing us this story!

Allegreto Navona is a dangerous assassin who will stop at nothing to regain his rightful place...And suddenly, the perfect tool has been dropped into his lap in the form of Elena - The long-lost Monteverde princess.

Seeing the usefulness of an alliance between himself and the Lady, Allegreto schemes to bind her to him...Only he never expected that Elena would come to him willingly and that he would grow to love her in return.

Shadow Heart was SO GOOD. Yes, it had its flaws. I had a few problems with the plot and things that I felt were a bit unbelieveable..things that I wont go into here...Basically, I was so taken with this story and its characters and their relationship, that the flaws were ones that I happily overlooked.

I just adored Allegreto. I adored him. He did bad things and was not always the most likeable character, but he was so unsure and vulnerable when it came to his Elena... I just couldnt help myself..I have to say that he has become one of my favorites.

I liked Elena as well, but mostly, I liked Elena and Allegreto together. There is one scene where Allegreto and Elena play this game of Morra together that was just so unbelievably endearing, I read passages of that chapter over and over. In fact, this book was full of small sweet moments that I found myself rereading as I went.

What can I say? Once again, Kinsale didnt disappoint..this is a book that has made its way firmly onto my keepers shelf.

Laura Kinsale is an awesome author. Her characters have complex motivations and the plots don't follow the usual formulae. This book is no exception. This is not a good choice for those who want a few cute and spicy romp scenes wrapped up in a who-cares-if-it's-reseached time period. But if you want characters who grow and develop and who have deep motivations and drives this one is great. The main characters are completely believable, from what I understand anyway, as reflections of the mideval time. Their outlooks may seem foolish to us, but they reflect a lot of the worldview.

It's true that incredibly handsome Allegreto has been warped and turned into an assassin by his controlling and vicious father. And at first he does behave horribly toward Elena, and she responds in kind, while being incredibly attracted to and repelled by him. As others have mentioned, the sex scenes are unusual and there are some other graphic scenes in the book that are uncomfortable. But by the end of the book Allegreto and Elena's relationship has "normalized" a lot as their emotions are produced more by love and less by fear, anger and domination/submission. But the plot is beautiful and the character of Allegreto is amazing, even though I'm sure I wouldn't like him if I were to meet him in real life.