The Rogue

Rating:
Summary: Powerful medieval drama - Highly recommended
Review: A portent arrives in the form of a raven, and Ysabella of Kinfairlie is not surprised when her estranged husband appears. Their two week marriage ended when she fled after learning Merlyn peddles religious relics when she had believed his livelihood was in textiles. She could not live with his crimes. Five years have passed since those glorious two weeks, and now Ysabella brews ale to support her sister and brother. After an explosive encounter, he leaves, only for word to come the following day of his death.

Ysabella inherits her husband's estate, Ravensmuir. During her first night in the keep, Ysabella dreams of making love with Meryln. When she awakens with proof of their passion, Ysabella seeks answers. Merlyn confesses to staging his demise because someone seeks to kill him. He hopes to flush out his aggressor by giving Ysabella his property. Merlyn demands her trust even while withholding all the information she demands. Somewhere within the keep lies a treasure men will kill for.

Clair Delacroix pens an intriguing medieval romance with THE ROUGUE. Delacroix demonstrates a remarkable creative flair with THE ROGUE as it vividly creates a marvelous fourteenth century tale. Her vividly realized characters create a fabulous world of fierce loyalty and dangerous betrayal. Ysabella's five years of struggle to provide for her family, thereby clinging to her moral and ethical values despite starvation and deprivation proves her a powerful heroine. Her common background and lack of education and breeding sharply contrasts the laird of Ravensmuir, even as they are spiritually matched. While the choice of a first person narrative distances readers from the roguish hero, it also adds a beguiling sense of immediacy. THE ROGUE comes highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Delacroix goes above and beyond
Review: I enjoyed Delacroix's Bridequest series, but with the Rogue she goes above and beyond. Her characters have a lot of depth and chemistry and her plot has twists and turns that keep you guessing. She's scored an A+ with this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Delacroix goes above and beyond
Review: I enjoyed Delacroix's Bridequest series, but with the Rogue she goes above and beyond. Her characters have a lot of depth and chemistry and her plot has twists and turns that keep you guessing. She's scored an A+ with this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Warning: the gothic stylings of ...
Review: I usually enjoy Claire Delacroix's historical romances, with or without the supernatural element. "The Rogue" veered too far into gothic territory for my taste, however. I wish I had read the author's afterward first, before purchasing this particular title, because she clearly warns the (developing) Ravensmuir series will showcase her approach to "neo-gothic romance."

To me, this read like a bad melodrama. The characters, in spite of their frequent protestations against it, persisted in behavior inconsistent with their own description of their characters. Early on I lost any interest in who was lying about what, and when, for whatever reasons. If this were a movie, almost every development in the plot would be accompanied by weeping strings or threatening music. With so much angst and foreshadowing, all the unknowns supposedly contributing to the suspense were easily discerned far before the ending.

I think even diehard gothic romance fans will find this an unsatisfying offering. And if you actually prefer her writing as Claire Cross (I do), give this one a miss.

Rating:
Summary: exciting historical romance
Review: In 1371, Merlyn Lammergeir goes to see his estranged wife Ysabella, but she rejects him as she has done for the past five years since she learned he peddled religious relics. Ysabella works extremely hard as an ale maker to provide food and shelter for her sister and brother. The next day she finds out that her spouse died and she inherited his estate Ravensmuir. She moves into the hold.

That night she dreams of making love with Merlyn only to awaken in the morning and know he still lives as her dream was real. When she confronts him, he admits he faked his death because he was framed for murder. Merlyn believes that Ysabella will uncover the culprit and so set in motion his plan by giving her the property. Unbeknownst to Ysabella is that Merlyn has a second objective to reconcile with his spouse.

THE ROGUE is an exciting historical romance that lives up to its title through the dynamic charming Merlyn. Ysabella is a fine lead character, but at times one must wonder about the cost of her obstinacy on her relatives so that she can comply with her so-called values. The intrigue is cleverly handled so that the audience receives a wonderful fourteenth century tale as expected from the gifted Claire Delacroix.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: exciting historical romance
Review: In 1371, Merlyn Lammergeir goes to see his estranged wife Ysabella, but she rejects him as she has done for the past five years since she learned he peddled religious relics. Ysabella works extremely hard as an ale maker to provide food and shelter for her sister and brother. The next day she finds out that her spouse died and she inherited his estate Ravensmuir. She moves into the hold.

That night she dreams of making love with Merlyn only to awaken in the morning and know he still lives as her dream was real. When she confronts him, he admits he faked his death because he was framed for murder. Merlyn believes that Ysabella will uncover the culprit and so set in motion his plan by giving her the property. Unbeknownst to Ysabella is that Merlyn has a second objective to reconcile with his spouse.

THE ROGUE is an exciting historical romance that lives up to its title through the dynamic charming Merlyn. Ysabella is a fine lead character, but at times one must wonder about the cost of her obstinacy on her relatives so that she can comply with her so-called values. The intrigue is cleverly handled so that the audience receives a wonderful fourteenth century tale as expected from the gifted Claire Delacroix.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and exciting
Review: Setting - Scotland 1371 --- The story opens with our heroine, Ysabella, who was once married then left the wealthy Merlyn Lammergeier, laird of Ravensmuir, five years previously after only a fortnight of marriage. She is shunned by the townspeople after they believe she had been cast off and set aside by her husband. In order to support her sister and brother, she is forced to brew ale under the auspices of another due to arcane local ordinances. It is a meager existence but one of her choosing since she rejected and abandoned the husband she could not reconcile herself with once she believed that he dealt in stolen religious artifacts. Now, Merlyn has returned to reclaim her and though she certainly feels the passion he elicits in her she spurns him again.

The next day she is informed that Merlyn has been murdered and she is his heiress, inheriting Ravensmuir which she promptly moves her family into. Her first night in her solar and she dreams of making quite passionate love to Merlyn, only to discover the next morning that it wasn't a dream but reality. Merlyn is alive, having survived an ambush, and he asks Ysabella to continue to play a grieving widow to help him discover his assailant.

The intrigue and mystery of the book is very clever with a couple of surprises, though somewhat predictable. The reader should find the historical aspect of this novel very interesting highlighting the illicit religious artifact trade that was prevalent in that period. Ysabella's illiteracy, figuring prominently and another source of conflict in the marriage, was also an interesting historical aspect to discover in how it was dealt with during that period. Of course, Ysabella's continued obstinacy did begin to grate on my nerves as I found Merlyn to be quite charming and most deserving of a second chance and her 'secret' was really quite easy to figure out. All in all, I would definitely recommend this first book in the Ravensmuir saga, and though I was introduced to the series by reading the third book first, they both stand alone and are engrossing and fabulously exciting reads by this very talented and gifted author.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, but didn't engage me.
Review: Ysabelle and Merlyn's story was a well written story, it just did not motivate me to want to read it. Done in an overblown gothic feel (which I didn't mind too much), I never really engaged my emotions while reading this story. The beginning of this book, written in Ysabelle's POV, kept emphasizing the fact that Merlyn was a cheat and a liar. Ysabelle did such a good job maligning our hero, that I never fully came to like him, even after everything was explained. Also, because the POV in which this book was written, Merlyn comes across as so completely mysterious, that I never felt like I got to know him.

There also seemed to be some glaring inconsistencies in the plot. Some of these were explained to a limited extent in the end, but they did not ring true to me. Without giving away too many spoilers to the story, Ysabelle relates the story as a peasant girl growing up in a village devastated by plague and war. No one seems to remember much of their over lords or what it means to live in a feudal society, and everyone else on the outside seems to have forgotten this area of Scotland. The reader sees that this is not true in the end, and that there are "outsiders" who care about this area, but this interest seems contrived to me, to make sure the plot continues. I guess if Ms. Delacroix was trying to show a lawless, dark time, filled with uncertainty or I would even call it apathy, then she succeeded. I just was not comfortable with the climate/atmosphere she built.

I know that I am now getting nit-picky, but the name of Meryln also bothered me. It was explained in this book that his surname was a predatory bird. Although spelled differently, why was his first name also related to a predatory bird? It seemed a bit redundant to me. Overall, I am giving this book 3 stars because I thought the quality of the writing very good; I just could not get into the story itself to enjoy the writing.