A (pseudo-) historic novel, a (sometimes erotic) love story, an adventure - an entertaining quick holiday read.

Gleichzeitig auch den Geocache geloggt.

Danke für den Besuch unserer Gladbücher...
Englisch ist immer gut - dieses Buch nehme ich mal mit...

I'm not normally into bodice rippers that much, but it mentions ghosts! I hope it doesn't just mean that figuratively as in "haunted by nightmares" -- I'd love for this to have a supernatural element!

Queen Rhiannon of the Brigantes falls into the hands of Lucius, a member of the occupying force from the Roman fort of Vindolanda -- and he intends to keep her as a *gasp* bed-slave!
Little do they know that it wasn't chance that has brought them together, but the ghost of Lucius' brother Aulus, whom the Brigantes had sacrificed to the stag-god Cernunnos...

Oh dear! Only a few chapters in, and already we have tightening loins, pink nipples and -I kid you not- stiffening rods. I'm not sure how the two of them will take almost 300 more pages until the (undoubtedly) happy ending!

Actually, this wasn't half bad!

When I wrote the previous journal entry, I wasn't sure at all if I would even finish the book; it was just so fraught with innuendo that I didn't think it could hold my interest for another 250+ pages.
As is to be expected in the genre, there were just so many painful stereotypes it wasn't funny anymore; apart from our two gorgeous protagonists (who confirm neatly to the ethnic stereotypes of the fiery Celt and the noble Roman and who just had the right amount of tragedy in their lifes to give them "interesting" scars and distract from their picture-perfect physiques), we have the brutish and filthy savage chieftain who is not above rape, the incredibly well-endowed dwarf, the gay obsessed with cleanliness and the prudish younger brother who would do anything to protect his sister's honour.

So if the characters didn't save the book, maybe the beautiful language did? I'm afraid I have to say that the two distinct sets of horribly bad accents (pseudo-Celtic that looked like mangled Scots to my non-nativespeaker's eyes, and something ridiculously stilted that was supposedly intended to emulate Latin) quite distracted me from my reading pleasure until I learned to just ignore it and "translate" the dialogues in my head.

I have no idea why I enjoyed this so much. At some point I just really got into the story and got totally carried away with the need to find out what would happen next. Even though this isn't the most historically accurate novel I've ever read (lots of Neopagan stereotypes going on, and a pretty biased take on Druidism), I really enjoyed how Nash tied in little details like the Vindolanda tablets, the destruction of the shrines on Anglesey (which took me some internet research to find) or Cartimandua to give the story some depth.
This may be pulp, but it works; pulp can be good fun, too, if you don't expect any more from it, and I sure enjoyed two afternoons worth of light entertainment.

Reserved for the winner of one of the spooky/halloweeny sweepstakes that are currently going on. I'm sure at least one of the winners will not sneeze at a Romance.

For my partner in the Hallowe'en exchange; I think you enjoy the occasional romance, too?

Arrived today with all the other goodies you sent me, thanks so much :)

Will leave this one at the free library at Mjódd.