Joan Wolf, To The Castle

To the Castle

Joan Wolf

Mira, Aug 2005, $6.99, 384 pp.

ISBN: 0778322033

Eleanor "Nell" de Bonville has spent the last decade at the Convent of St. Cecilia as a "payment" to God for providing her parents with a male heir. However, her brother Geoffrey died and now her sister Sybilla has joined the angels so her father the Earl of Lincoln feels he owes no debt to God. He removes a stunned Nell from the convent just a few months before she was to take her vows.

Her father and the Earl of Wiltshire had arranged a marriage between Sybilla and the latter's grandson Roger. As civil was seems imminent between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, alliances are critical to survival so Nell will substitute for her deceased sister in this political arrangement. Nell and Roger marry and he is very kind to her, even waiting to consummate their vows. As they fall in love, Roger's duty to King Stephen puts him at risk.

This twelfth century romance uses the backdrop of the civil war to provide a warm tender tale of love between two deserving nice individuals. Fans will empathize with Nell struggling to adapt to the real world after being cloistered in a convent for a decade just as they will appreciate the patient kindhearted Roger slowly enabling his wife to adjust while being there for her though he seems more twenty-first century with his compassionate outlook. The battle royal augments a fine medieval romance.

Harriet Klausner