I have to say, I love Elizabeth Chadwick and I devour whatever she writes. I stayed up super late with this book because I couldn't put it down. I love her descriptions of the Middle Ages and castle/fortress living, the dress, the customs, and the ways in which people may have mixed complete religious belief with practicality, logic, and human emotion. I also love her descriptions of the people. Many Medieval men come off as brutes who beat their wives, and women who have no power in the home. But I think that's an unfair characterization, and Chadwick does a great job of how the enforced gender roles may actually have worked in a marriage and household while still showing people as people, even if they lived hundreds of years ago.

I really like the plot of this novel because it provides insight into characters that aren't as well known (compared to William Marshal), in the relative backwaters of the Marches during a very volatile time in English history. We're not at the center of the action here (unlike Lady of the English), we're on the outside, and we see how "normal nobles" lived and interacted with each other, and how loyalties to each side of the conflict influenced these interactions. 

I love Brunin, and I loved watching him grow up. He was so shy at the beginning, it was so much fun to see him grow up and who he became. I also love the de Dinan family how they welcomed Brunin. 

What was the most interesting about this book is that it's based on a 14th century romantic tale. All the characters in the novel are mentioned in the original manuscript, but it is difficult to know how much of the tale is true. While she did her own research, Chadwick mentions in the Afterword that she based a lot of the story off of the 14th century tale. So there may be more fiction here than fact, but I though this was especially cool.