The Fall

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for the Romantic
Review: Cludia Dain is a master writer of sensual banter and sexual tension. Her books have strong women who find more than a man, they find themselves. As the book unfolds you see all the characters for the complex personalities that they have become over time. You begin to know the hearts of these women and the men who try to rule them. Ulrich is a worthy opponent for such a fiesty Juliane.

Harriet, you have some of your facts wrong that affect the outcome of the conflict. The first husband did not die and it wasn't the "attraction" between Juliane and Ulrich that convinced her father of his worth, but it was his "abilities." I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it yet.

I am hoping the ending is a beginning for Edward and Avice (I just loved how their conflict was developed) and who knows, maybe we will see Young William and Lunete in the future. I look forward to reading more about these couples and how they finally get together. Ms. Dain, keep writing and keep taking us back to this rich, medieval world.

Rating:
Summary: you have got to be kidding me!
Review: I have enjoyed Dain's past novels, even when the violence toward the heroine made me uncomfortable. But this book simply went too far besides being totally unrealistic. What woman on the face of this earth, could be brutally raped and in the next minute consummate her marriage in front her best friend, her husband's best friend, and her BROTHER. Let alone enjoy it. This disgusted me. I cannot buy any more of her books if this trend is going to continue. Unless you have some masochistic streak in you, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.

Rating:
Summary: Kinda repetitive
Review: I think there were about 100 pages too many. There was overt and implied violence that was disturbing, and the hero had anger management issues - their first kiss was really hostile. Beware - and buy used.

Rating:
Summary: Well Written - Well-Matched Characters
Review: I've read hundreds of romances. This was one of the better-written stories. When I first read this book, I was so enchanted that I thought I would add it to my rare "Keep Forever" collection. The main characters play well off each other. The secondary characters were also delightful and several sequels could come from this. My only complaint was with the level of violence near the end. The heroine got cruel treatment -- something other romances authors usually stop short of doing to their characters. I realized then that this was going to be a "read-once-only" book for its higher than normal violence.

Rating:
Summary: fine medieval romantic rendition of The Taming of the Shrew
Review: In the twelfth century, fourteen years old Juliane of Stanora marries a man selected by her father. However, before she is bedded her spouse dies. Juliane earns an unfair name as Lady Frost.

A few years later, womanizing Ulrich of Caen arrives at Stanora with plans to enhance his reputation by defrosting Juliane "le Gel". However, she considers him a handsome loser, the "Lord of Nothing" as he has no property or anything else. When Juliane's dad becomes ill, he worries about whom will protect his beloved daughter so noticing the attraction between his guest and his child beyond the face of their war, he arranges a marriage between his daughter and Ulrich. However, on the way to the ceremony, Juliane is abducted leaving Ulrich to risk his life to save the woman he loves.

Fans will appreciate this fine medieval romantic rendition of The Taming of the Shrew (though Lady Frost is actually a nicer person than Kiss Me Kate is). The story line starts slow until the lead couple turn into enemy combatants. From that moment the tale never looks back as the fine duet turns into Beloved Enemies. Though a late twist adds suspense, the tale belongs to the gender warring warriors.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Big fall for Dain.
Review: Juliane Le Gel married young as she was instructed. Things went wrong, however, when the witness of the consummation of her marriage told the tale that, though she was obedient and submissive in the bedchamber, Juliane's husband couldn't rise to the occasion and breach her maidenhead. Because the marriage couldn't be finalized with consummation, Juliane was divorced from her husband. Given a reprieve, as she saw it, from the hardship of marriage, Juliane built a reputation for herself as the "Frost Fair". The legend was that though many men had tried to win her, none could keep from "withering" when she looked at them.

Ulrich of Caen is a [illegitimate] born knight with a reputation for the ladies. He comes to Juliane's home with a couple of his buddies to try to "melt the ice" of the legendary Juliane.

I find myself writing this review in a very stilted manner, and can't help but think that it's because I've been damaged by the heavy medieval style in which this tale is told. This is not the first Dain book I've read, and she's usually very good at helping to create a tone for her book with her prose. If she's writing Puritans and Pirates, it feels like a book about Puritans and Pirates. If she writes a Western, let me tell you, it feels like a Western. Normally if she writes a medieval, it really feels like a medieval. This feels like a medieval, but one written by a Victorian author. "The Fall" is too vague, too wordy, too artificial to work. I had to force myself through the first fifty pages, the whole time shaking my head in disbelief that this could be a Claudia Dain book--often I slide along so easily in her prose that I find myself reading a whole book in one sitting. That was simply not the case this time around.

Juliane isn't really frigid. She's just been skillful about creating an aura of it around herself. Employing servants, family members, and even animals in her quest to have a cold shower affect on every man she meets. Sure she was successful, but by the end of the book I have myself wondering why. The whole basis of the legend was a lie, Juliane's first marriage was consummated, she's not a virgin, but her husband was convinced to go along with the story and walk away from her by her father for reasons that are never really revealed and therefore seem fantastical. Why would her husband walk away?

Also, Juliane's set up is as a strong heroine, and she is strong, but she's also a little dumb and emotionally ignorant. She's totally blind to the true feelings and machinations of an uncle who likes to meddle. It's apparent that she's into Ulrich, but she resists him like crazy for a reason that feels really false--she says she doesn't want him to know her legend is a lie or something to that effect. She runs off after their wedding and gets herself "intimately violated" (yes, actually "intimately violated") just because she's trying to prove that Ulrich doesn't control her or something. I just don't really like her.

Ulrich has baggage, as even medieval rakes are wont to do. He has no money or land, and decides to marry Juliane when she's offered to him (because her father thinks she's the man for him just because he can get it up--even though the father knows the whole frigid thing is a myth) so that he can take the land he'll get and make the son he already has heir to it. Yeah. Juliane's own children will be landless and penniless so that Ulrich's [illegitimate] son can have the only estate they're given. Never would a medieval woman's family have made such a match for her, knowing that. Typical romance author mistake, though, we see this sort of thing all of the time. People forget the main consideration of arranged marriages was not furthering the interests of the two people marrying so much as it was furthering the prospects of any products of the union, and therefore the importance of both families involved. Sorry, tangent.

Anyway, these two, somewhere in the middle of the strange little "game" of courtly love they're playing fall in love. Then (and here's the thing that really made the book a total loss for me), they consummate their marriage two days after she was brutally "intimately violated". Yeah. And it's a full blown "we're having the best sex of our lives" sex scene. Okay you haven't heard the worst yet. The "bedding" is witnessed by his best friend, her sister, and her brother. That's right. It's like a bad porn movie. And it's not one of those historically accurate "witness the consummation" moments. It feels really dirty. Squick.

I have to give "The Fall" one star. It just doesn't have any redeeming qualities--though the secondary romance comes close. I'd love to play the part of fangirl (which I am when it comes to Dain, honestly), but I have to be honest. The plot looks like someone used it for target practice. The characters aren't very good. The prose, from an author who's normally excellent, is awful. And, there are some downright disgusting and horrific scenes. I love Claudia Dain, she's so much better than this. Go read "The Marriage Bed", or "Tell Me Lies", or "A Kiss To Die For", or heck ANYTHING else by Dain. She's normally amazing, but we all have bad days, right?

Also, there are "Taming of The Shrew" elements here. I guess. Sort of. But not enough to mention. I don't really think that comparison was Dain's intention at all, nor do I really think it is founded.


Rating:
Summary: How?
Review: Really, I am curious how a book such as this could ever get published. Not one to normally review on books, I found that I simply could not allow this book to go without a review, at least stating that it is not worth your patience. I will not be reading another of Claudia Dain's books. Altogether, there were too many terrible occurrences in the book, and they override the good. Don't waste your money on this book, you can find many others that are much more worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: A slow burn leads to surprises - and finds a new fan.
Review: There are times when I'm in the mood for a tried-and-true, formula bodice-ripper, and I thought from the cover distraction that I was buying just that. You can't go far wrong with the Reluctant Bride vs. Fierce Knight scenario, right? And nothing frees my fantasies from a guity need for political correctness better than a medieval setting.

In the opening chapters, I thought I was going to be disappointed. Not in Dain's writing, which is lovely, but in the ripping-of-bodices factor. There was a lot of talk and not much action. I skipped a few chapters, expecting to read "the good parts" and toss this one. Then something happened that NEVER happens to me once I've formed a poor first impression of a book: I got hooked. Dain not only created sizzling sexual chemistry between her protagonists, but made them real enough to me that I cared about the outcome. I'll even admit to a tear or two. This book manages to have a feminist slant without sacrificing period authenticity or the bodice-ripper thrills. The story isn't that unfamiliar - she's trying to retain her independence at a time and place in history that offers no choices to women; he's using her to gain her land, and to regain his pride in the bargain; both are so obsessed with the need to win justice for themselves that they behave badly - but in this case, there's something so poignant and believable about the characters that it all seems quite original. What I found most refreshing here was that in the midst of those infuriating insult-slinging contests that pass for a battle of the sexes in so many romances, these two would sometimes laugh at themselves, acknowledging the absurdity of their feud in a way that puts them on the reader's side. That, and the fact that I didn't see the ending coming, puts Claudia Dain on my "Christina Dodd List" of must-read authors.

Rating:
Summary: how does this get on a romance shelf?
Review: This book is so full of rape and violence I wonder if it wasn't written by a man using a pen name. The main character gets brutally raped and then has sex with her husband in front of a group of people like in a bad porn movie. I felt like I needed a bath after this. How does this stuff ever get published as romance which is supposed to be love? Gross porngraphic and disgusting

Rating:
Summary: Kind of boring
Review: This is the first novel I have ever read by this author. However, I'm an avid reader of historical romances. I found this book boring and extremely hard to get into. It was not the page-turner I had hoped.