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jewelsinlove's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
lisajh5858's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. It kept me intrigued enough to read it in 5 days but I'm just not sure I particularly liked the characters. They were well developed and seemed very human but in the end I felt I just didn't care enough about them one way or the other. From the way it was talked up on the cover and in some of the other reviews I think perhaps I was expecting much more of this book than it actually offered.
alexis_reads's review against another edition
3.0
If you read this, you need to suspend modern standards of gender relations. This is set during the Crusades. Women were treated abysmally. The fact that this historical fiction/romance doesn't shy away from that, or try to erase it, is a good thing.
I think I liked this, although I'm mostly coming away slightly bewildered. The writing style is really understated, and so I didn't grasp important plot points or details until after the fact; there aren't many of the syntactical details that would typically help s reader know when they should remember something for later. While this is sometimes a good thing, I thought that it got old in a book of this length. I like to feel smart sometimes, you know.
The characters were excellent: they were all nuanced and thought out, particularly Richard and Maria, our main couple. Maria has a very satisfying sense of self-preservation and practicality, and you never see her becoming annoyingly hysterical or lashing out (excessively) because of some inane reason. Although there's definitely a double standard rehearsing how people view women who get angry versus men, it was nice to see a character, male or female, who manages to stay cool when the situation calls for it. Richard definitely has the whole emotionally-repressed-strong-man thing going on, although I think I can say that he grows from this.
Definitely an interesting story, although the politics and world weren't fleshed out enough for me to be invested in the political aspect of the plot. The reason I kept reading was because of the relationships between the characters and the growth of the characters themselves.
Trigger warnings for: underage sex, rape, marital abuse
I think I liked this, although I'm mostly coming away slightly bewildered. The writing style is really understated, and so I didn't grasp important plot points or details until after the fact; there aren't many of the syntactical details that would typically help s reader know when they should remember something for later. While this is sometimes a good thing, I thought that it got old in a book of this length. I like to feel smart sometimes, you know.
The characters were excellent: they were all nuanced and thought out, particularly Richard and Maria, our main couple. Maria has a very satisfying sense of self-preservation and practicality, and you never see her becoming annoyingly hysterical or lashing out (excessively) because of some inane reason. Although there's definitely a double standard rehearsing how people view women who get angry versus men, it was nice to see a character, male or female, who manages to stay cool when the situation calls for it. Richard definitely has the whole emotionally-repressed-strong-man thing going on, although I think I can say that he grows from this.
Definitely an interesting story, although the politics and world weren't fleshed out enough for me to be invested in the political aspect of the plot. The reason I kept reading was because of the relationships between the characters and the growth of the characters themselves.
Trigger warnings for: underage sex, rape, marital abuse
monicabhills's review against another edition
4.0
I'm torn with this book. Maria and Richard were very interesting characters but at times I really just wanted Maria to leave Richard. He was just not a nice man. I know people would say that was the time period but I was very upset at times at how she was treated. Maria was an amazing woman and I really enjoyed reading her story.
rosin1's review against another edition
3.0
It was pretty good, but it was very slow paced and honestly if I hadn't been lying on beach all day doing nothing but reading, I probably wouldn't have been able to pull through. It's driven by character much more than action, and the characters are definitely fully fleshed out, my only major annoyance being Maria's lack of good friends. Though she had a couple of female attendants through the years, most of them were less than impressive. I was a bit annoyed to find out that though it was set in Norman Italy all the settings and persons were made up. I didn't really feel like that was made clear at all, and it just feels somewhat unnecessary to make this great epic, make it HF instead of fantasy, but still make up all of these things.
alexis_reads's review
3.0
If you read this, you need to suspend modern standards of gender relations. This is set during the Crusades. Women were treated abysmally. The fact that this historical fiction/romance doesn't shy away from that, or try to erase it, is a good thing.
I think I liked this, although I'm mostly coming away slightly bewildered. The writing style is really understated, and so I didn't grasp important plot points or details until after the fact; there aren't many of the syntactical details that would typically help s reader know when they should remember something for later. While this is sometimes a good thing, I thought that it got old in a book of this length. I like to feel smart sometimes, you know.
The characters were excellent: they were all nuanced and thought out, particularly Richard and Maria, our main couple. Maria has a very satisfying sense of self-preservation and practicality, and you never see her becoming annoyingly hysterical or lashing out (excessively) because of some inane reason. Although there's definitely a double standard rehearsing how people view women who get angry versus men, it was nice to see a character, male or female, who manages to stay cool when the situation calls for it. Richard definitely has the whole emotionally-repressed-strong-man thing going on, although I think I can say that he grows from this.
Definitely an interesting story, although the politics and world weren't fleshed out enough for me to be invested in the political aspect of the plot. The reason I kept reading was because of the relationships between the characters and the growth of the characters themselves.
Trigger warnings for: underage sex, rape, marital abuse
I think I liked this, although I'm mostly coming away slightly bewildered. The writing style is really understated, and so I didn't grasp important plot points or details until after the fact; there aren't many of the syntactical details that would typically help s reader know when they should remember something for later. While this is sometimes a good thing, I thought that it got old in a book of this length. I like to feel smart sometimes, you know.
The characters were excellent: they were all nuanced and thought out, particularly Richard and Maria, our main couple. Maria has a very satisfying sense of self-preservation and practicality, and you never see her becoming annoyingly hysterical or lashing out (excessively) because of some inane reason. Although there's definitely a double standard rehearsing how people view women who get angry versus men, it was nice to see a character, male or female, who manages to stay cool when the situation calls for it. Richard definitely has the whole emotionally-repressed-strong-man thing going on, although I think I can say that he grows from this.
Definitely an interesting story, although the politics and world weren't fleshed out enough for me to be invested in the political aspect of the plot. The reason I kept reading was because of the relationships between the characters and the growth of the characters themselves.
Trigger warnings for: underage sex, rape, marital abuse
rhodered's review
5.0
Makes other historical fiction look like fluff. I especially enjoyed Maria's growth as a deeply religious woman learning to accept the Muslims.
nigellicus's review
5.0
At the risk of admitting that I am the sort of person who is pleasantly surprised to discover water is wet despite going for a swim once every week or so, it is gratifying to discover, once more, how unromantic a romantic historical novel can be. Great Maria, of all of Cecelia Hollands' novels I've read this far, is certainly the most romantic of her books. Love and the relationship between a man and a woman plays a central role, and it's the first of her books to feature a female protagonist. It is also, incidentally, twice as long as everything else I've read by her.
Being a Holland novel, no-one gets off lightly. Maria's life is charted from her prepubescent innocence to her wily middle age. The daughter of a powerful Norman robber-knight in southern Italy in the early 11th century, she is married off to one of his more ambitious men, Richard (despite her own preference for Richard's younger brother, Roger.) When her father decides that Richard is getting a bit too big for his britches, his plan to kill him fails and Richard takes ownership of his castle and lands. Richard's ambitions are to rise above the role of thief, and he sets out to carve out his own place in the world.
Maria never questions her subservient role in this world. She doesn't long to be a knight or agitate for voting rights or rail against the closed medieval mind. Hers is a medieval mind. When her husband beats her, she doesn't like it or even love him for it, but she has to accept there's nothing she can do about it and her fate is tied to his. Gradually she comes into her own, prescribed, female role, often bringing Richard's violent wrath down on herself, sometimes because she is foolish, sometimes because she is clever, always because she is headstrong. Risking his temper is a thing she is prepared to do to get her way. Nonetheless, he grows to rely on her and her attraction to him is as much physical as it is anything else.
She has babies, not all of whom survive, and they grow, and Richard extends his conquests and his power, and there is danger and intrigues and violence and tempestuous scenes and passionate... stuff and eavesdropping and betrayals, all told in Hollands crisp, plain, practical style that makes no apologies for characters that are compelling and multi-faceted and sympathetic even with their monstrous faults, such as domestic abuse and murder.
Being a Holland novel, no-one gets off lightly. Maria's life is charted from her prepubescent innocence to her wily middle age. The daughter of a powerful Norman robber-knight in southern Italy in the early 11th century, she is married off to one of his more ambitious men, Richard (despite her own preference for Richard's younger brother, Roger.) When her father decides that Richard is getting a bit too big for his britches, his plan to kill him fails and Richard takes ownership of his castle and lands. Richard's ambitions are to rise above the role of thief, and he sets out to carve out his own place in the world.
Maria never questions her subservient role in this world. She doesn't long to be a knight or agitate for voting rights or rail against the closed medieval mind. Hers is a medieval mind. When her husband beats her, she doesn't like it or even love him for it, but she has to accept there's nothing she can do about it and her fate is tied to his. Gradually she comes into her own, prescribed, female role, often bringing Richard's violent wrath down on herself, sometimes because she is foolish, sometimes because she is clever, always because she is headstrong. Risking his temper is a thing she is prepared to do to get her way. Nonetheless, he grows to rely on her and her attraction to him is as much physical as it is anything else.
She has babies, not all of whom survive, and they grow, and Richard extends his conquests and his power, and there is danger and intrigues and violence and tempestuous scenes and passionate... stuff and eavesdropping and betrayals, all told in Hollands crisp, plain, practical style that makes no apologies for characters that are compelling and multi-faceted and sympathetic even with their monstrous faults, such as domestic abuse and murder.
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