Oh, cool - Maud and Stephen!

I have to admit, my first historical fiction experience with the messy succession of Henry I was Sharon Kaye Penman's When Christ and His Saints Slept, which set the bar almost impossibly high for any novel to follow.

This version has the two of them as embattled lovers who have to give up each other as neither will give up the throne. I think I'm going to put this on Mt. TBR for now - I have plenty of other books to release in the meanwhile!

Hardcover book w/dust jacket, received through freecycle.

Meh. I tried to start this last night. Got maybe a page or three into it.

It wasn't bad; I just found it a shade overwritten in a way I knew was going to set my teeth on edge as I worked my way through it. Since I've already read the basic story (and heard the rumor that the two were lovers), there didn't seem to be any point in going on. Come to think of it, I think I've read Jean Plaidy's version, too.

The book does smell very faintly of smoke, which I didn't notice earlier (and wasn't sure last night until I'd taken a good whiff).

Whee - Mt. TBR is taking a licking!

Releasing through Freecycle.

If you receive this book, it would be great if you could log a journal entry (you may remain anonymous if you like). Let me know what you think of it, or where it's travelling next. And if you decide it's a keeper, that's okay too.

Apparently I only thought I released this, because it turned up again in a box of books my husband had set aside to read. He's thinned his TBRs way down, and it's back in my hands again - soon to be released again, I'm sure!

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I left this on the table outside the Carteret Community Library (second floor). There used to be another table, and signs on both saying FREE BOOKS. If I'd known the signs are gone now, I'd have labeled the outside covers of this and the other book I left so people could see they were available.

Ah, well - I took a chance and left them anyway. I hope someone comes along and takes them.