Review: The Shattered Rose by Jo Beverley

by 11/08/2015 0 comments
I decided to read The Shattered Rose because I love medieval romances. It sounded like a story of loss and betrayal, but promised romance and redemption too, so after a rather dry reading spell, I thought this would be just the pick me up I needed.

My Rating:
Genre: Historical Romance

And just look at that cover. Who could resist it? Definitely not me. But, I digress. Cover love aside, I thought this was a really good read. The plot goes much deeper than a couple being reunited and learning to forgive and move forward with their lives. Jehanne is a woman who has sinned, not only in the eyes of the Church and society at that time, but in her own heart, and not only because she betrayed her husband, but also because she doubted God, and let herself down. In the progress, she has hurt others and that weighs heavily on her.

Her husband was harder for me to understand. He's furious at Jehanne but at the same time, loves her far too much to be angry for long or to punish her. At first, it confused me as he didn't seem like the typical medieval husband, and I wasn't sure what to expect from him. But, after some contemplation I came to realize that Galeran is a good man, and that the Crusade he'd been on, and what he had seen there had made him a stronger man. That new strength with his already innate goodness and sense of right and wrong allowed him to really see what had happened and why, and to forgive and forget.

The one thing that I didn't really enjoy about this novel was the subplot of Raoul and Aline. Their romance was a bit more sizzling, more fraught with the emotions of first love and while I liked that, I did feel it took over the story a little bit. I think that this couple got more than enough romantic page time and wish that Jehanne and Geleran's romance had one or two more scenes of the kind of emotion we got for Aline and Raoul. They kinda stole the romance-light from the main couple I thought.

A well written, novel with a meaty plot and characters that are very well portrayed. I found this book hard to put down, and I'll be reading Jo Beverley again.

Happy Readings,
Jewels

Jewels E

Author

I'm a thirty something girl who loves to read, write and dream. Because I'm so addicted to the written word in all its forms, I created this blog to share the books that devastate me with you.

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