Rating: 
Summary: Great Story
Review: This writer manages to absorb the reader in the historical period and brings to light kings, queens and those who serve them as well as the social history. In addition she tells a fast paced and complex tale, full of action and characters that ring true across eight hundred years. She hasn't been bogged down by the conventional wisdom about the time and its people (Richard - good, John - bad) instead we see them as the complex and often confounded people that they were. She shows us the struggle across the Welsh marches, the beauty of Wales and the strength of its people.She has given us a protagonist with a wonderful mixture of strengths and failings. Justin de Quincey is maturing nicely in this series. I'm looking forward to reading more about his exploits.
Rating:
Summary: Dragon's Lair
Review: This, the third installment in Sharon Kay Penman's mystery series featuring her intrepid sleuth Justin de Quincy, is sure to delight new and old readers, and should read well even as a standalone. In this novel Justin is despatched by his employer, Eleanor of Aquitaine, into the wilds of medieval Wales to solve the mystery of a vanished 'king's ransom' in wool bales. This may not sound exciting but Penman is a master storyteller and weaves an engaging adventure. At the same time, while Justin is separated from his love interest and friends for the majority of the action, there are interesting shifts in his relationship with his father which foster the development of this endearing lead character, and while not perhaps as strong as CRUEL AS THE GRAVE, DRAGON'S LAIR is a worthy addition to de Quincy's adventures. Fans of Penman's historical fiction who, like myself, find the mystery format not essentially to their taste will likely enjoy DRAGON'S LAIR more than previous de Quincy novels because it takes Justin firmly into the territory covered by Penman's first Plantagenet novel, the classic HERE BE DRAGONS. At times passages from HBD are inserted almost verbatim into DRAGON'S LAIR, but this is managed relatively seamlessly, though Penman employs distinctly different writing styles for her mysteries and historical novels. The treatment of one of her greatest heroes, Llewelyn ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd evokes the best of both these styles. The elevated and slightly archaised 'history' language evokes the Llewelyn so carefully characterised in HBD, while the more down-to-earth and distinctly humorous style of her 'mystery' gives Llewelyn a chance to shine as the high-spirited and light-hearted man the weightier concerns of HBD rarely permitted him to be.
Rating: 
Summary: It so obvious who the culprit is.
Review: While this book may be historically accurate, to me anyway, it amounted to a huge disappointment because I was looking forward to a very good read. There are a number of different suspects and you`ll figure out who two of them are right from the beginning. Unlike other idiots on this site who INSIST on putting spoilers in their reviews you`ll just have to trust me when I say one individual is accused from the start and another reveals themselves to Justin straight away. After that the story sort of lumbers along until the plain and simple is spoken and at this point I could care less if they found the ransom or not. I might have injoyed the story more if it went back and forth between Justin`s search and before and up until Richard was kidnapped for the King does not make an appearence in the story.
P.S. For whatever it`s worth how does anybody read 2 books a day EVERYDAY for over 8 years and not dislike anyone of said books?
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