Clare Gutierrez

This is a historical fantasy set in England in 1483. There are premonitions of dangerous times ahead. And then sure enough, the king is dead, and the crown is up for grabs. The story follows the “symbol maker’s daughter” on her dangerous quest, and our petulant heroine is also involved in a ‘taming of the shrew’ type of romance.

I found this difficult to get into. It may have helped if I’d had a better knowledge of British history, (beyond what I learnt from Black Adder), as I found it hard to keep track of the many characters and who they were supposed to be loyal to. I don’t care for fantasy, so I could have done without the telepathic communication and the predictions, though the latter are the basis for the story’s premise (which I didn’t really buy into).

The writing was grammatically fine, but the storyline had too many unbelievable coincidences for me. (E.g., numerous separate characters all conveniently go straight to the same London establishment, as if there is only one in the whole city). This was in addition to the lack of logic at times and the uneven pacing. I finally gave up at 60 %. I won a free copy of this book (thanks to the author & publisher!) and am voluntarily providing an honest review.… (mere)

Umm, so I finished it...and I'd really like to sit down with Caty and have a talk with her about how she keeps marrying men who essentially hold her captive (literally). She marries three times throughout this novel and each time Caty attempts to escape the man pursuing her (also, you'd think at least one of these men would decide it's just not worth the trouble, but still) and ultimately fails and marries the guy instead. The author has a note at the end about how times were different back then, but honestly, this book was full of too many historical inaccuracies for me to take it seriously by that point.… (mere)