Customer Reviews

Silver Mirror

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

 

 

Yes, the hero's name is Alphonse (of Aix)and Roberta Gellis does a great job of bringing his life in the era of Henry III to life. Alphonse is the younger brother of Raymond Comte d'Aix whose story was told in Fire Song and the nephew of both Eleanor, Queen of England, and the Queen of France. He has spent his life at the French court as, essentially, a diplomat and politician.

During his time at the French Court he had been instrumental in arranging the affairs of Barbara, the natural daughter of the Earl of Norfolk. He had also fallen desperately in love with her.

However Barbara was already married to a friend of his and Alphonse is too honorable to engage her in an affair. When Barbara's husband dies unexpectedly and Barbara recoils from the men who seek her as a bride because of her wealth, Alphonse withdraws from temptation to Aix.

Now it is ten years later. The Barons of England are in revolt. Queen Eleanor is in France trying to secure support for her husband. Among those of Henry's supporters who have fled to France is Barbara's uncle. And Barbara is sent as her father's emissary with news of his wife, children and estates. There, she and Alphonse meet again.

Played out against the politics of the era, the story of Barbara and Alphonse is engrossing reading. This is one of Gellis' stronger historical novels. The characters are interesting and the conclusion satisfying.

Once again Roberta Gellis has set an intriging passionate novel in a medieval time period with a skill that makes history come alive. When Lady Barbara Bigod first told Alphonse d'Aix she lived him she was 13 years old and he considered her only a child. When they meet again 11 years later he has grown to love her spirit, her mind and her love of court intrigue. But she accuses him of wanting to make her his mistress. When he immediately asks her to marry him, she fears she has shamed him into the question. When she says yes, he thinks she is joking. They marry, but neither is sure of the other. Court intrigues, rumors of invasion and attempts on Barbara's honor further complicate their marriage.

How I wish Gellis were still writing historical romance! I want good history in with the romance, and Gellis was one of the few who satisfied. Silver Mirror paints a rare picture of life at court in the mid-thirteenth century. Alphonse, a younger son, is not a landed lord; he serves as his family's representative at the French and English courts, and has earned a living on the tourney circuit. Barbe, the heroine, is the illegitimate daughter of an earl; she has a modest property but also lives mainly at court as one of the noble attendants of one of the princesses. Alphonse and Barbe's struggle to come to an understanding is entangled in the struggle for control of the English throne. Gellis manages to intertwine romance and history better than any author I can think of.

A Silver Mirror is more historical fiction than historical romance - and if I was more in the mood for that sort of thing, I might have persevered, but as it is, the book ended up boring me and hitting some of my pet peeves instead, so I ended up putting it down. I got to page 350, with a hundred pages to go, so I feel like I gave it a good enough chance to interest me, but it just kept on with more of the same, and wasn't going anywhere, either in plot or romance. Boy did this book redefine the concept of repetitive for me.

A Silver Mirror concerns itself with the civil strife besetting England at the time - King Henry is a weak, bad king. His barons have rebelled and stolen power from him. The heroine's father numbers among those rebels, and so she understandably has sympathies with that side. But her uncle is the king's man, and she's concerned for him and his wife, so she's divided in her loyalties, which are even further divided when she ends up marrying a royalist. As is the nature of civil war, her conflict is one that carries through to the rest of the nation. The two sides, rebel and royalist, are trying to negotiate peace with the help of King Louis of France, who staunchly maintains his neutrality. But the course to reconciliation is a slippery, rocky, difficult slope, each side opposed yet conscious of and struggling with the double edged nature of a conflict where everyone is wronged and doing wrong. It's a lose/lose situation all around. The author sets up this political situation with nuance and clarity - it's complex and detailed, with a lot of different sides and different kings, queens, and princes putting their two cents in. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Somehow, Gellis made it all very uninteresting.

Mostly, I think, because the two main characters fell very flat for me. Which is a shame, because I felt like they had a lot of promise. Lady Barbara, also, weirdly known as "Barby," is a rather atypical aristocratic lady - rather outspoken/bold, but not annoying and silly about it. She's intelligent and crafty and knows her way around not one but two royal courts, those of the French and the English monarchs in both of whose houses she's served in the past. She's unconventional and strong, and very smart, as she negotiates the various pitfalls of court intrigue and potential political traps. Alphonse is a French knight and courtier who is also very much at home playing at the manipulations and careful plotting of court intrigues. He's a charmer and a rake type. Unfortunately, I never connected with either of them, and they were both kind of superficially drawn.

As for the relationship between the two, they met seven years prior, and that was when they fell in love. So their romance all happens off stage, as it were. They met in France, were separated because of some misunderstanding or other, she goes back to England, but, when she returns to France and meets up with him again, as soon as he sees her, he realizes he loves her and wants to marry her. He proposes, she accepts, and that's about it. The main conflict for their marriage is her concern for his rake reputation. She can't trust him to stay faithful and so decides that if she lets him know how much she loves him, he will lose interest in her. Solution: she will hide her passion and feelings for him. This is a stupid enough plan in and of itself, and really, really annoys me. But what's even worse is that, when she's not playing hot and cold with her husband, nothing is happening. At all! The two of them spend the whole time traveling around England, trying to negotiate their way between the conflicting royalist and rebel parties. There's a brief detour to outsmart a bad guy intent on having his wicked way with Barbara, but that's about it. Just a lot of traveling around and meeting up with different people, with Barby and Alphonse watching their words, being politic and crafty, trying to interpret what other people are saying, and fencing verbally with various kings and courtiers in the volatile atmosphere of a country torn apart by civil war.

Every now and then the author seems to remember that there is supposed to be a romance going on, so Barby gets all hot and bothered with Alphonse, then shoves him away and confuses him. These episodes are brief and sporadic, and there's never any real interaction between the two of them, no flashbacks to give me some idea of the nature of the supposed love that had developed between them in the past (nothing beyond some vague references to a silver mirror he gave her back then and that she's held on to, but, of course, hides from him.) Nor is there any development of their relationship in the present. All their conversations together are more like strategy conferences as they try to make sure they aren't held hostage by whichever person they happen to have met up with at the time. Not being held hostage is a big concern of theirs. It's nice that Alphonse values her opinion, and they kind of work together as a team to outsmart others and look after their joint interests. But it gets really old. It's all about politics, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, and would have been interesting, but the way that it's represented, I feel like I'm reading the same conversation over and over again - the two of them watching their words, conferring with each other about what truths, half truths, or untruths to say to whom, what kind of negotiations to propose. And again, no romance, and hardly any character development. Oh, and when it comes to marital relations of a more intimate sort, every time there was a fade out. That annoyed me most of all - probably disproportionately, and it was really more incidental that anything else. But I thought I would mention it. These complaints make me seem really shallow and depraved, I know. But there it is. For me, A Silver Mirror had not enough spice, and too much politics. Couldn't finish it.

At least those of her books I've read so far that is. Barbara is the "natural" daughter of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and the story is set during the latter years of Henry III's reign during the conflict between Henry and his barons, most specifically Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Barbara's father Roger sides with Leicester while his brother sides with the royalists. Leicester's younger son Guy aims to make Barbara his mistress against her will and to avoid exacerbating the political situation she sails for France.

Married and widowed at a very young age (although the marriage was never consummated), Barbara has carried a torch for knight Alphonse d'Aix and still carries the silver mirror he won in a tourney and gave to a very young Barbara. When the two meet again, they are instantly attracted to each other and decide to wed -- although neither are willing to admit their true feelings for each other. The rest of the story evolves around the growing conflict between Henry and his son Edward and Leicester and the rebellious barons as Barbara and Alphonse return to England and are constantly involved in the thick of all the intrigue and treachery as the two warring factions battle for supremacy, until that final and fateful battle at Evesham.

Gellis does a good job (as usual) setting up the back story and history of the period and although this is billed as a romance there's quite a bit more to it than that - if you're looking for a bodice ripper I suggest you look elsewhere - you'll probably be bored to tears with all the history. Barbara and Alphonse were really rather adorable with their fears of revealing their true feelings to each other and the crossed purposes on the path to true love - Barbara always thinking Alphonse is off chasing other women while Alphonse discovers the silver mirror Barbara treasures above all else and thinks she is hiding a secret lover. Although a bit slow at times as the history of this period is a bit complex, I did enjoy it and found it just right for a snow bound winter's afternoon. 3.5/5 stars.

As usual Roberta wrote a wonderful story, with a lot of historical content, which makes all her stories so believeable. I also recommenh all the Roselynde Chronicals