FEATURED AUTHOR - Six-time BRAG Medallion Honoree, #1 Best-selling Historical Fantasy author Maria Grace has her PhD in Educational Psychology and is a 16-year veteran of the university classroom where she taught courses in human growth and development, learning, test development and counseling. None of which have anything to do with her undergraduate studies in economics/sociology/managerial studies/behavior sciences. She pretends to be a mild-mannered writer/cat-lady, but most of her vacations require helmets…
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Recent comments: User reviews
I liked "All things are Lights". Not as good as "The Saracen" as I found it a lot more straightforward with clear "good guys" and "bad guys" whereas the Saracen felt more ambiguous (thereby more realistic for me).
I found some of the romance chapters a bit cheezy (How many times did the Lady have to sigh over how "tall and dark" her troubador was?). But it really nicely tied together a lot of interesting aspects of the times: crusades, cathars, trobadors, templars, King Louis, tournaments, the inqusition, etc. I found the crusading chapters with Saint Louis and Baibars the most appealing. Also interesting that the dastardly Charles of Anjou has cameos, considering the part he'll play in the "Saracen" novels.
This is what Seinkiewicz should be known for. Not Quo Vadis. Ask any Pole and they will agree.
the "nefarious" plot involves kidnapping important Europeans and taking them to China. The scorpion is constantly betrayed by his loyal followers. the only fun character is the French detective Gaston Max. Everyone else is boring and one dimentional
A decent retelling of Louis IX's crusade to Egypt, it handles the famous characters well, even giving background on the saracen leaders. reads like a textbook at times.
the bad: one diementional protagonists, one is happy, the other morose and thats about it.
spends far too much time trying to make the English look good and the French bad. Hard to do in truth when your main subject is the irreproachable warrior Saint King who happens to be French. If the author could have got off this bigoted nationalism long enough to put more effort into the story it could have been a great novel rather than average
The novel is one-sided, showing Harold\\\'s good side, explaining away the zealous excesses after his conversion to Christianity (such as forcing non-christians to swallow poisonous snakes for not converting.