Read: 18 March, 2010Joanna, King John's illigitimate daughter, is married to prince Llywelyn Fawr of Wales to secure an alliance. But John didn't count on his daughter falling in love. When the relations between the two men start to deteriorate, Joanna is caught between her love for her father and her love for her husband.
As Wikipedia points out, one of the draws of Here Be Dragons is that it's virgin territory; there are very few novels out there about historical Wales and, I confess, it was a milieu that I knew almost nothing about.
The historical aspects of the novel were fabulous, but it did occasionally cross into the territory of romance. Fair enough, I realize that many do like that sort of thing, but I found it rather boring and frustrating. Apparently, it's a staple of the romance genre that people who are in love absolutely refuse to communicate with each other and, instead, simply assume the worst of the other person. I'll never understand how this sort of thing came to be called "love" in our culture, but there you have it.
I realize that I'm not one to complain given how wooden and choppy my own writing style is, but I found Penman's style in this book to be rather difficult to read. She has the awful tendency to force what should have been several sentences into one, joining them awkwardly. For example, she writes: "He even tried to forget the atrocity stories that were so much a part of his heritage, tales of English conquest and cruelties." It works fine for effect now and then, but she uses it nearly every other sentence!
The book is meticulously researched and Penman is able to really bring the setting to life. The story, although about a class that is all-but extinct living lives that are so unlike anything we are familiar with, is, at the same time, very accessible. The conflict of allegiance between one's parents and one's spouse is something that I think most readers would be able to sympathize with.
Despite it's flaws, I'd put Here Be Dragons as one of the better historical fiction novels on the market, well worth the read for anyone interested in the Middle Ages.
Other books in the Welsh Princes series:
- Here Be Dragons
- Falls The Shadow
- The Reckoning
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