The Bride of Rosecliffe

Rating:
Summary: Not crazy about it, but entertaining enough.
Review: "Bride of Rosecliffe" is your typical romance story involving castles, a rebellious young beauty, the knight that must tame her, etc etc. Rexanne Becnel's chosen a thorougly medieval setting -- that of the occupation of Wales by marcher barons in the reign of King Henry I. It was purely for the setting that I picked this up, having a more than moderate interest in the time of King Henry's reign. Not to mention that I read several of Rexanne Becnel's books a few years ago and really loved them. I found her writing to be on par with the 3 big J's -- Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, and Judith McNaught.

I was fairly disappointed with the 'Bride of Rosecliffe'. The hero Rand is, in a word, unlikeable. The prologue sets up his feelings about being 'shipped off' to Wales to build a castle, and for the life of me, I thought they were introducing the villain, not the hero! Not a good start!

The heroine, Josselyn, is your typical cookie-cutter heroine. Ballsy, beautiful, and overly-educated. Nothing that makes her stand out from the masses. But then again, nothing that makes me particularly like her either. She's a bit annoying in her flip-flopping and (obviously) idiotic decisions in regards to her 'patriotism'. At one point she decides to spy on the Norman lord Rand, and hires herself on as his 'welsh teacher' (a plot device I found a little hard to swallow), and instead of sabotaging his learning of the language --as was her original plan -- she instead goes about chirping all the correct words to him and teaching him Welsh. Come on, Rexanne, couldn't you have tried harder?

I guess that was the most frustrating thing about the book -- the characters were always doing things I found to be inconsistent with their nature. Patriotic Josselyn spends all of her time HELPING the English. Hard, 'brooding' lord Rand spends his time dragging after Josselyn like a dog in heat. The Welsh aren't that warlike, and the English aren't that likeable, so I'm not sure where the author was going with this.

I will say though, that this book is an easy, entertaining read that you probably will like, as long as you aren't overly critical of the plot like me. So take my words with a grain of salt. Being an aspiring writer myself, I tend to be a bit harder on books than most, I guess because I see the potential in them that is so often squandered by a few bad plot choices.

Final review -- Good ideas, well written (Becnel always writes a well thought out story), but silly plot. Doesn't live up to it's potential.

Rating:
Summary: Love Wins Between Two Enemies!
Review: Enemies attracted to each other, trying to deny the attraction. Differences to overcome, history to overcome, struggles and more struggels. Good story throughout with love winning in the end. The intimacy shared between the main characters was erotic and moving. The book was a good read, I look forward to the next in the series.

Rating:
Summary: Not Up To Par With Her Best
Review: Having been highly impressed by most of Rexanne Becnel's previous novels, I felt that "The Bride of Rosecliff" was a fine read but somewhat lacking. Maybe it was the fact that this book was more depressing and violent than the others. Once I had reached the end, I was actually glad that it was over and the main characters had been relieved of their heavy emotional burdens. Somehow, I don't find myself anticipating the next book in the series a great deal.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as her others
Review: I have read three other books by Ms Becnel and loved them. This one was just okay. I would not read it again. I got alittle tired or Rand(y)'s almost constant state or arousal when Josselyn was around. Sure he admired her intellect, her loyalty, her spirit, but that lust was almost always the driving force. And Josselyn's constant--I shouldn't want him. He's my enemy. I hate him. But...--got tiresome. If it had not been by Ms Becnel, I might not even have given the book a three. Do I want to bother with the second story? I doubt it. I did not even like the character Rhonwen. Rhys and Jasper seemed okay, but Rhonwen irritated me. I'll try her again, but I'll heed other readers comments first.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Under OK
Review: I say "The Bride of Rosecliffe" is a little worse than ok because of the ending.

Josselyn ap Carreg Du is a Welsh woman and is shocked to discover that English men would be building a castle in her lands.

Randulf Fitz Hugh is the English leader who plans to build the castle in Wales, the place where Josselyn lives. He builds the castle in the name of King Henry and once he is done, he plans to return to London. What he wants is peace so that the castle can be built successfully and then there would be no troubles.

Josselyn decides to spy on the English be being the tutor for Randulf to teach him her language. Randulf pays her by the coin. What they didn't expect was the attraction between them. But even if they were falling in love, could they overcome the boundaries of Welsh and English?

I think this book was really good in the beginning and in the middle. The ending was bad but then there are the other books that continue after "The Bride of Rosecliffe" and I hope it's able to cleanly end this off. The second book to this one is "The Knight of Rosecliffe"

Rating:
Summary: Delightful and sexy!
Review: I truly enjoyed the latest by Ms. Becnel. Her books are all uniformly good, but this one kept me entranced. Her treatment of the Wales/England conflict was fascinating, and her hero had me salivating.

Rating:
Summary: A story of conflict between the Welsh and English invaders.
Review: Josselyn is a spirited, fiercely patriotic young Welsh heiress. Rand is an English nobleman sent to conquer and subdue the Welsh for the English king. Each fights against their attraction for each other because of their nationalistic origins.

I purchased this book because it was highly recommended by Romantic Times Magazine. However, I was disappointed. The romance angle was overshadowed by the hatred and frequent betrayals. Rand was portrayed as such a tough, unfeeling conqueror that it just didn't seem possible that he would fall in love with anyone, let alone a Welsh girl as patriotic as Josselyn. Sexual attraction, yes. Love, no. On Josselyn's part, falling in love seemed to be a result of their sexual encounters more than anything else. Maybe such a thing might happen to an ordinary woman, but not a strong, spirited young miss like Josselyn. This book could use a lot more romance and a lot less hatred and betrayal.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: Ms. Becnel is in top form with this wonderful book. I couldn't put it down. The conflict between Rand and Josslyn kept me on the edge of my seat. How can two enemies ever fall in love? They fight their feelings, but love does win in the end. One of the best books I've read in a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Old fashion living with the romance of today
Review: My Girlfriend and I bought this book and decided to discover "what romance novels are like." Our thoughts were that they would be a cheep story to introduce sex. I was wrong. I mean sex is in the book, but it was presented in a tastfull way, not the best, but nice. Not a bad read. Pages went swiftly by!

Rating:
Summary: Old fashion living with the romance of today
Review: My Girlfriend and I bought this book and decided to discover "what romance novels are like." Our thoughts were that they would be a cheep story to introduce sex. I was wrong. I mean sex is in the book, but it was presented in a tastfull way, not the best, but nice. Not a bad read. Pages went swiftly by!