REVIEW: Fire Song | Roberta Gellis | Cerridwen Press

Title: Fire Song
Series: Royal Dynasty #3
Author: Roberta Gellis
Website of Author: http://www.robertagellis.com/
Website of Publisher: http://www.jasminejade.com/
Genre: Historical Romance
Publication date: November 2009
ISBN: 9781419921643
Length: 298 pages (Super Plus Novel)
Format: eBook
"Sponsored" Review Copy from : Publisher

Reviewer: Clayton Clifford Bye
http://www.claytonbye.com
Alternative-Read.com


Members of the royal families of England and France during the late 1240's and early 1250's live in a political quagmire. One wrong word, decision or action has the potential to plunge any one of them right into the heart of any number of intrigues. When one cannot trust anything his or her king says or does, stability is just not possible.

Fenice d’Aix and Aubery of Ilmer, widowers both, come to a marriage arranged during this trying time as parts of a plan to consolidate and preserve properties belonging to two different royal families. Thrown into the heart of a political nightmare, both carrying secrets from their first marriages that make each of them emotional time bombs, the two lovers still struggle to forge a strong union.

Sound complicated? It is. Fire Song by Roberta Gellis drops the reader into intrigue on page one and never lets you out. Within this credible historical fiction she also embarks on character studies of a man and woman of the times. Aubrey, while he stands for honour, courage and honesty, is not above beating his wife to keep her in line. Nor is he above hiring a woman for an evening when it suits him. Fenice, raised in a political household, is quite adept at using her own political contacts to circumvent her husband’s activities when he treats her as something he owns, rather than an intelligent partner. As for physical love? She’s quite aware of how men of the times act and she’s so pragmatic as to be shocking.

Fire Song is a book you might want to take in small bites. There is so much going on, I think it could be easy to become frustrated with the story. With this said, it’s a rarity to find such a comprehensive and dualistic historical novel. Gellis knows her stuff! And not only does she write with the ease of authority, she entertains. I found myself being called back to the book time and time again, always wondering what was going to happen next. Fire Song did not feel like it was 298 pages long.

Roberta Gellis is a professional. I didn’t need to go to her website to confirm her significant body of work. It’s highly unlikely that a novice could pull off a complicated endeavour like Fire Song. In fact, I noticed the book was previously released in 1984; I would bet that Gellis did a significant rewrite, using the intervening 25 years of experience. In any event, Fire Song is a fine piece of writing.


Copyright © Clayton Clifford Bye 2010
 


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