Customer Reviews

The Conqueror (DeWarenne Dynasty)

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I read this book for the first time years ago and it quickly took up residence on my "Keeper" shelf. This is the story of Ceidre and Rolfe during the time of William the Conqueror. So right off the bat, you are thrown into the savage and barbaric time which Ms. Joyce has a gift for recreating beautifully and so believably! With that in mind, there are a few questionable scenes that - by today's standards - some might find offensive, perhaps even appalling. But that's just it -- it does NOT take place in this time. The women of this era are treated not as equals, but as property; and marriages are arranged in order to gain the husband coveted land and power. That was just the way it was back then -- it's historical fact -- and this book captures the essence of the period magnificently.

Ceidre is "cursed" with what they call the "evil eye" and she is feared by many because of it. But Rolfe isn't afraid of her. No, he is more than a little attracted to her from their first meet.

King William has granted Rolfe "Aelfgar" - which is home to Ceidre's two brothers. The brothers have been branded as traitors and are hiding from the King's men who are intent on capturing them for treason. Rolfe's orders are to capture the missing brother and bring them back to William. He is also ordered to gain control of Aelfgar by marrying the traitorous brothers' sister. He soon finds out that Ceidre is illigetimate and that her hateful sister is the rightful heir to the castle. Rolfe lusts for Ceidre, but realizes he must marry the legitimate sister in order to gain rights to the land.

Both the hero and heroine in this book are fantastic. You feel for each of them as they battle their feelings, their duties, and their loyalties. There is a lot of very sexual tension between Rolfe and the opinionated Ceidre. You will fall for Rolfe -- even though he is somewhat barbaric (and maybe even BECAUSE of it). There is a very gentle side to him and we get glimpses of that nature when he is around Ceidre. The length he will go to protect her will tug at your heartstrings. And the love scenes will curl your toes. Just keep in mind what era you're reading about when you read some of the scenes.

Like I said, this is a KEEPER and I have enjoyed reading and re-reading it many, MANY times. I would be surprised if it didn't find it's way to your own "Keeper" shelf, as well. Enjoy! :)

This is a melodrama of people hurting other people through stupidity, jealousy, cruelty, selfishness and insensitivity. This was not entertaining. I never smiled or had a pleasant feeling. My emotional reaction was "yuck." I wanted it to be over. A few of the characters' frustrating, unpleasant and unsympathetic actions are in Spoilers below.

CAUTION SPOILERS:
Ceidre and Alice are half-sisters. Rolfe meets Ceidre and falls in lust with her immediately. He dislikes Alice but marries her for property reasons. Alice hates Ceidre out of jealousy and other reasons. Alice uses every chance she can to hurt Ceidre and three times nearly kills Ceidre. Alice creates false evidence that Ceidre is a spy so she could put Ceidre in a dungeon. Later, Ceidre stupidly tells Alice that Ceidre is going to have sex with Rolfe in order to spy for her brothers. Alice is happy because she plans to tell Rolfe that Ceidre admits to using sex with him for the purpose of spying. Why would Ceidre ever tell this to her enemy Alice?

Rolfe does a number of things that are not likeable, including the following. He arranges for his best friend (and one of his warriors) Guy to marry Ceidre, but Rolfe spends the wedding night with her, raping her. Later he orders her to come to his bedroom. He insults her and tells her that he prefers Alice for the night. Ceidre starts encouraging sex with Rolfe. Although they are married to others, Ceidre and Rolfe have sex frequently and fall in love with each other. However, Ceidre continues to act as a spy and warns Rolfe's enemies of his actions. As a result, Rolfe's men are ambushed, many die and Rolfe could have died. Ceidre stupidly claims she thought the enemy would flee from Rolfe's advance instead of ambush him. I couldn't take this merry-go-round of stupidity.

Sexual language: moderate. Number of sex scenes: eighteen. Setting: 1069 England. Copyright: 1990. Genre: historical romance.

The Conqueror was the first book I have read by Brenda Joyce. It is the type of romance often written about fifteen years ago that we do not see much today. This type of romance involves a very strong yet ruthless hero who treats the heroine very badly from time to time yet finds himself obsessed with her. The hero of The Conqueror reminds me of other ruthless, yet endearing heroes in two other books I have read from this same time period that stand among my favorites. Rolfe, the hero of The Conqueror is similar to Garrick from Johanna Lindsey's Fires of Winter or Ranulf from Nicole Jordan's The Warrior. I have written reviews on both of those books should you want a comparison. Please note - this is not a book for the weak at heart. This is strong subject matter that at times is volatile and at other times highly sensual.

Ceidre is the bastard daughter of a deceased Saxon lord and half sister to Lady Alice, the legitimate heir of their home, Aelfgar. Now that the dead Saxon lord's sons have double crossed William the Conqueror twice, the new king has awarded their home to one of his most loyal knights, Rolfe de Warenne. William has directed Rolfe to marry Lady Alice, thereby cementing his new ownership of this large holding. Rolfe first encounters Ceidre in the opening pages of the book when his knights are burning a village for hiding Saxon rebels. He mistakes her for a peasant and decides he will have a taste of her. When his men identify her as Rolfe's future bride, Rolfe realizes he must behave but is extremely pleased with his future bride. He had not expected to be drawn so fiercely to someone who would one day be his bride. Ceidre takes advantage of Rolfe's misunderstanding of her identity and travels back to Aelfgar with him - hoping to find an opportunity to escape. Upon reaching Ceidre's home, Aelfgar, Rolfe soon discovers that his future bride is Lady Alice, not Ceidre. Rolfe is enraged, very disappointed, and feels Ceidre has played him for a fool. From this point on, it is a battle of the wills as Rolfe attempts to put Ceidre in her place, fighting attraction every step of the way, and Ceidre defying Rolfe at every turn as she continues in her loyalty to her rebel Saxon brothers.

Now although I do appreciate a well-written alpha hero, I do not especially relish a violent hero. However, although this hero, Rolfe de Warenne, was just that - violent at times - there was this underlying enormity of loving feelings he had towards the heroine, Ceidre. Of course, being the typical romance hero written even today, he did not even want to admit much less explore his feelings for Ceidre. But those underlying feelings caused him to stay close, ever protecting her - even from her own foolish actions, and taking care of her when she was sick or injured. He did not want to banish her because it would mean separation from her although they had no official relationship - not even physically. At times, Rolfe really mistreated Ceidre and at other times, he was honorable, and still at other times, loving. It can safely be stated that his feelings for Ceidre certainly confused him. Despite Ceidre's negative treatment, I still loved The Conqueror because it portrayed an ongoing tenderness between the leads that was very engaging. There were many obstacles for these two to overcome and Brenda Joyce is able to make common romance situations highly intriguing without even one boring page.

This was an extremely good love story and one that will keep you anxiously reading one page after another. The sensual rating for this is high at a solid 4.5 out of 5.0 (see More About Me for rating guidelines). The Conqueror is a strong keeper and I know I will relish reading it again. Now I am eagerly perusing Brenda Joyce's backlist. She is a very talented author who keeps the action mainly on the love affair. Although there are some interesting secondary characters and conflict in the background, the leads definitely carry this story. And that is the way I love the romances I read to be - about the romance!

I enjoyed this book so much, i read it straight through in one day. when i finished, i just kinda sat back and thought about how sweetly the romance worked out but then i was like "wait... that's not right" because it SHOUDN'T of worked out. It was sweet because true love won out, but ciedre's love must have been seriously stong to over look some of the issues Rolfe had. Issues like rape and slaughter. Her first encounter w/ him resulted in him knocking her flat on her back and nearly rapeing her. If it had been me, i would have never forgiven him for just that. But ciedre kept comming back to him even after he did rape her and on her WEDDING night. Thats just twisted. I understand that the whole feminist thing was hundreds of years from taking place, but did that girl completely lack good sense? the reason I only gave it 2 stars is beacuse she actually made love to Rolfe right after he raped her. Its too perverted for my taste.

Reading this book reminded me of why I started reading romance novels in the first place. Historical content, charater driven stories involving realistic heros and heroines caught up in real conflicts. No mistaken identity, big misunderstandings or worries about acceptance by the "ton" here. My favorite part of the book was how the Rolf zeroed in on Ceidre from the beginning and never waivered. He may not have said the words until the end of the book, but his regard for her was evident. Very romantic. Mr. Darcy has nothing on Rolf.

O hai! Meet Ceidre. She is a witch, and in the next 420 pages, there are no end of people on hand to tell you so. It's Ceidre's misfortune to have a knack with herbal remedies and also a wandering eye, which twists the superstitious knickers of those around her. Her eye is conveniently referred to whenever she needs to be an object of distrust or have her self-esteem crushed. There is nothing about her finding it a bit hard to focus on things or losing her balance at odd times because the eyes aren't quite working together. I know of what I speak, because I haz one. So the poor eye was trotted out to get the same convenient beating over and over, and then shut away in the author's Closet of Forgetfulness the rest of the time.

And who's that? Why, it's Rolfe! Or The Relentless, as his latest winning streak of rampaging and pillaging has earned him quite the fearsome rep. He's a tall boy, golden and glowing, a wencher and rogerer. He'll take you front, back, and sideways from dusk to dawn and his Little Rolfe will still be raring to go. A very tumescent shaft has he, and you will practically know its topography by the time you're done with the book. I would even go so far as to say that it is a character in itself, since it propels events as much as anybody else does and the very thought of it can completely confuzzle Ceidre. It has authoritah. Respect it.

Meet Alice, Ceidre's half-sister and a "Witch!"-spewing harridan of invective. She's not a very nice person, and if you turn her sideways, she's about as thin as a piece of paper. Or, in fancy talk, "one-dimensional." She has about one note that she plays on a screechy little instrument called her voice. She hates the physical side of sex, until Rolfe gives it to her rough, and then she taps into her kinky side, wanting to let her mean freak flag fly. She can scratch skin with her kinky little claws, but barely the surface of my interest.

These were the three main characters, and there was far too much of them as they circled each other in close confines. By about page 100, we had reached the height of their development and it was a slow circling of the drain from there on out. Rolfe and Ceidre were especially frustrating, as a cycle of betrayal, imprisonment, hate sex, love sex, betrayal, etc. was repeated over and over. Rolfe grows a little bit in his attitude towards Ceidre, but he regresses in a contrivance so he can be the rampaging brute from page 1 before snapping back to Good Rolfe for the last clinch. And the last 160 pages contained so much sex that I got bored, since the first 260 pages was packed full of sexual thoughts. In fact, the three main characters think of little but sex for about 80% of the time. Repetitive? Oh, a tad.

I've heard this 1990 book was a throwback to the old bodice rippers, and is quite controversial. I thought it was a mess of Old Romance Meets New Romance. The first chapter ends with Rolfe nearly raping Ceidre, and Rolfe is a total Alpha male, so the Old Skool stuff is well-represented. But Rolfe has that weird post-Heroine-meeting Revulsion of Female Flesh that drives him to jealous insanity. He must have her! No other! He sleeps with a peasant and also his wife, but it's the thought of Ceidre's sweet, tender flesh and those feelings he holds but can't name (i.e., Love) that turn him into a cartoonish Hulk Smash. It's that obnoxious priestly blue balls syndrome post-heroine that drives me loony in the new romance, because some authors practically fetishize it.

Maybe it was the over-emphasis on the sex that annoyed me. Everything else, plot and logic, took a backseat. For example - and I won't go into detail to spoil it for anyone - Rolfe proves himself a total imbecile of a jailer twice (TWICE!) and yet William the Conqueror remands Ceidre back into Rolfe's custody because "all my prisons are full." Sure! There was no other lord with a keep that had a spare room anywhere else in the kingdom? But Rolfe and Ceidre have to get back onto the same real estate for the sexual drama to continue unabated. Seriously, enough was enough with the leaky lady parts and exploding fruit imagery and the mental piledriving and writhing. I started out liking the book, but by the end they weren't a Norman lord and a Saxon wench but a walking penis and vagina. Not two brain cells between them to rub together, but they did plenty of rubbing anyway.

Blah. The more I think about it, the more annoying it was.

(Oh, and for all you squeamish ladies who hate those old clinch covers, how about some unsubtle symbolic penetration for the reissue?)

The characters themselves match their time. Their love and the way they reconcile dont. Ceidre would have been hung by William the Conqueror. Edwin would not have received clemency either.

The book should have been longer. Less than ten pages was devoted to their reconciliation. You cant cram a reconciliation after such extreme actions like treason in a couple of pages. In their time Rolfe would have hunted her down to kill her. I like Brenda Joyce, but the ending in this one was just too rushed. It's almost as if she realized she was coming up on her publisher's deadline or the publisher wanted to "trim fat" out of the book so the ending did not receive the attention the rest of the book did. I felt it was a sad disappointment.

Is this book brutal? Yeap. Is it painful to read at times? You Betcha. Do I love it? Absolutely! Why? Because it is a story about a brutal time, when men were warriors and women often no more than polictical pawns and even with those facts, I still get goose bumps when I read the book. This is a book about choice and redemption. The characters are flawed, but that is what makes them perfect. Brenda Joyce writes books that make me hurt (physically feel the anguish of the characters) and that means something. So is the book BAD, well it is not PC ... and all the complaints about the writing are probably fair, but it is like that really out of date unflatering poncho of my grandmothers that I still wear...it should be all wrong, but I can't help but love it and wear it anyway.

What a page turner, this book is filled with twists, not one moment of boredom from me.

I read it in 1 day and lost lots of sleep. This book made me angry, sad, happy, laugh... had enough tender moments to make me think it truly was a "romance " novel and yet had enough "dark, awful" moments to make me think it could've been marked as a fiction too.

Although the hero cheats, rapes, etc... he STILL comes across as tender, in love with the heroine... yes, it sounds bazare and if you havn't read this story you'll think I am nuts. But you just gotta read this tender and yet dark romance story to know what I mean.

I highly recommend this novel.

I just finished reading this book last night. I found it to be a great read. It was full of such gut wrenching emotion on both of the main characters sides that you felt you truly knew them... From the beginning Rolfe knows that Ceidre is ment to ne his. Cercumstances stand intheir way... They soon find a way to overcome them but then betrayal tears them apart. Although many people were disgusted with the strong sexual scenes, I feel that they were probably close to what a man of that time, in that situation would have done. He was a very SEXY hero. They loved each other with true passion.