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UK Authors - Romance- |
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The Love Knot |
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| The Love Knot by Vanessa Alexander Headline 183 pages, 1999 ISBN 0747262713 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde In 1297, Joanna of Acre was bundled into a nunnery by her father Edward I, after he had found out about her secret affair with penniless squire Ralph Monthermer. The two lovers write to each other from their respective prisons. Ralph has been taken to Bristol Castle while the king instigates an investigation. The lovers’ letters are full of empassioned outpourings. Throughout the novel, written in the form of letters, they remain the star-crossed lovers of romantic fiction down, and therefore rather uninteresting as characters. Enter the king’s investigator - the long-faced, sad-eyed clerk Henry Trokelowe, and the story takes off. Did Joanna’s brutal husband fall or was he pushed, and if so, who did the pushing? There are secret chambers where black magic is practised, comely witches, robust Chaucerian nuns, and coded missives. Fans of P.C. Doherty will be on familiar ground here. As Trokelowe was a real person, he might've also been the inspiration for Doherty’s sleuth, Hugh Corbett. It is his letters that touch the heart, as he tells of his only friendship and how it ended, and of his dogged determination ever since to understand the nature of love. Is it a disease, or something else? I enjoyed the device of the letters, although the lovers’ words became repetitive and their powerful personalities remained elusive. Henry was beautifully delineated and as sharp as a tack in his investigations – the rest is history. This author doesn’t waste a word in this brief novel, worth reading for its insights into a famous love affair and the people who were touched by it. |
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