books:

	• The Reckoning Sharon Kay Penman Ballantine Books, 1992 - 608 pages average customer review:based on 38 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Ms. Penman's tendency to allow fictionalized characters such as Hugh and Caitlin center stage, however, only detracts from her novel. This book is not for the faint of heart; the starkness of the ending, fictionalized characters aside, was something that stayed with me a long time. A very good book, if lacking the power of the other two in the trilogy.

for more information click here

beautiful written finale to the trilogy

Someone in Hollywood needs to make a movie out of this trilogy. Like the first two books in this trilogy , my interest was captured in the first paragraph. The characters are so real, that it is easy to forget they've all been dead for 1000 years!

for more information click here

Less emphasis on non-historical characters, please

A devoted fan of Penman, I loved this novel with no less a passion than I did the rest of her novels nut I do feel that it was the least of the trilogy. I attribute this to the increasing trend of Ms Penman towards focusing on non-historical characters. This first becomes evident in this novel, with Hugh, Caitlin and Juliana, moves on in When Christ and his saints slept to the young FitzHenry, and is completely demonstrated by the JUSTIN novels. This is not disparaging her talent in creating lower class characters or her knowledge of their society, but is sad because Penman's most extraordinary talent lies in the recreation or adaptation of existing historical characters - the movers and shakers. I need only point to Llewelyn ap Gruffydd or Davydd to illustrate this point. The immense tragedy of this pair and the last days of Wales could have stood without the distraction of that annoying oaf Hugh etc etc. I know that many readers of this trilogy thought that Llewelyn Fawr was a character who could not be improved upon, but I find somehow that it is his grandsons that haunt my thoughts more. The imprisonment and betrayals they suffered and the shadows they carried touched me very deeply and I think that many people in their age must have suffered such scarring. They are much darker characters but are all the more poignant for it - similar to John, who similarly suffered much in his youth from the vagaries of the wartorn society they lived in.

for more information click here

for more information click here

hot

or

not?

What's your opinion?     Write a review and share your thoughts!