About the Book:

I’ll not ask you to be mine …I will never seek to blunt the fury in you, never, and will honour your will as my own. What say you? Can you be a soldier’s wife? New England, 1673. Martha Allen, a young woman reviled by her family because of her refusal to marry, is packed off to be a servant in her cousin’s home. She takes charge of the neglected household and annoys everyone around her – including a mysterious Welshman who works for the family, a man whose forceful nature matches her own. As they both gradually let their guard down, a fragile, uneasy friendship grows between the pair. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a band of assassins, driven by the will of Charles II, charter a ship to the New World. They have a single aim: to capture Thomas Morgan, the killer of Charles I, and bring him back to London where he will face an excruciating death. The Royalists want to see his head on a spike outside the Tower of London. As Martha begins to fall for the tall Welshman, he reveals a little of his past. It soon becomes clear that his life is in grave danger. As the threat of the assassins grows closer, can Martha find it in herself to be a traitor’s wife?

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

I was first introduced to Kent’s writing when I read her book The Heretic’s Daughter, and with that one I knew that I had encountered a different writing style.  More immediate and direct in a minimalist sort of way.  And while I loved how that approach worked in The Heretic’s Daughter I was not as impressed with the results in this one.

There was much in the surrounding story that I felt has the potential for a very powerful story.  However, it never really seemed to get moving in any one, specific direction.  I felt like the minimalist approach did a real disservice to the story as a whole, and left me wishing there was more information, and more development.  I just came away feeling like there were huge gaps in the story that never really got resolved — which in the end only left me feeling like I wanted more.  Combined with the alternating pattern of the chapters, and the reader found they felt like they were being jerked from one place to another — and it was very difficult to remember which characters were which in the rapidly jarring book.

The character development was another area that the minimalist approach really hurt.  While Martha and Patience were very well developed in their scope, the male characters were almost shadows throughout the story — particularly the character of Thomas.  And while I understand that some of this lack of depth was due to the fact that many of the male characters are hiding pasts that they don’t want revealed — I found that it was carried to such an extreme that even when the romance develops between Martha and Thomas — it just seemed like there was no development at all — so much as it was suddenly there.  It taxed believability all the way around.

The men who are sent to hunt down the traitor’s to the crown were also another area that I felt was almost comically stereotypical in the presentation.  It was more like watching slapstick comedy — as opposed to reading a novel.  They simply can’t manage to do anything right!!!  Everything they try in achieving their assigned directive was pathetically inept — and yet they were suppose to be career criminals that were the best money could buy.  And yet, as a read I felt like they never get close — even though they are practically standing on the property of some of the traitors.  Adding to this problem the characters that are introduced as a means of assisting the bounty hunters and the reader just comes away shaking their head.  They just seemed to be introduced and then dropped with no background information — or even insight into what drives them. Overall I just didn’t feel that this was a book that quite got my attention.

Tags: America, Historical Fiction, Love, Murder, Mystery, Romance

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Suspense/Thriller