The King's General

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable Romance
Review: Daphne de Maurier is an excellent and elegant writer. Her writing is the kind that you will stick forever in your memory. The book was not your everyday love story; the book encompasses the Era of the English Civil War. With an American background the story is still quite easy to relate to. The story is told in first person through the eyes of Honor Harris. She portrays Honor as an amazingly insightful person, who is mentally strong and self-reliant. Her beauty lay on the inside, very much unlike another character, Gartred who could be described as being blunt and beautiful. The crippled Honor who refuses her lover frustrates the reader and brings longing to the novel. The lack of detail, particularly in the beginning keeps the reader turning pages. The story unfolds through concealed dialect between the characters. You will find mystery, romance, adventure, and comedy all tied in together. The relationship between Honor and her love Sir Richard Grenville, who depends on her to be there for him during the trying times of the war, is strong and steady. Sir Richard Grenville is reckless and wild while trying to manage his troops and long for his lover. All the twists tie in so perfectly together and make for an unforgettable read.

Rating:
Summary: I am a black widow spider
Review: My friend said she read this book and hated it. I didn't pay much attention, and probably would never have checked it out. I'm not much a fan of historical dramas. But when another friend said she read it and hated it I became very interested of a sudden. I had to know what was so horrible and depressing about this story.

And I have never regretted reading it.

I will confess. The characters are less than ideal. Sir Richard Grenvile is a self-centred cad; Honour Harris is a vain, spoiled maiden. Gartred is evil to the core, but every story has to have a villain, so that's all right.

But for some reason these characters are real. I've known self-centred cads before and I can easily understand Honour's tireless, devoted devotion to Richard, regardless of what he does or says.

Honour is crippled early in the book and spends the rest in a wheelchair. From this confining angle of vision comes a story of epic proportions, a sort of Cornwallian Gone With the Wind. Set in the 1600's during some civil war (I cannot tell which one, or if it was the only one), it tells the story of surviving invading soldiers and the desolation of the aftermath of war.

This story has it all. Romance, intrigue, births, deaths, tragedies, and the gothic setting of Menabilly. I cannot understand why my two friends hate it so. It was the best, most realistic, most fascinating story that I had read in a long time, and I felt peculiarly alive and inspired when I had finished it.

I told this to my first friend and she backed away from me. She referred to this motion as (I paraphrase) her retreat from a black widow spider. "How can you like that horrible book?" she asked. She and my other friend and I have had many, many debates - I in defense and they against me.

But I am happy to be a black widow spider as long as my web... web of intrigue... can be this book.