This is an old school historical, so I am just going to list all of the problematic issues with this book first: the heroine is 17, rape, domestic violence. All of this is a problem.

I love old school historicals, but I fully recognize everything that is problematic about them. What I love most about these books are the heroines and the bananas plot lines! Judith is the only living child of one of the most horrible father’s ever to grace the page. Now that his sons are dead, he is forcing Judith to marry, when she has studied her whole life to become a prioress. Judith refuses her father, but agrees when he breaks her mothers arm. Gavin is in love with a woman named Alice, but when she is “forced” to marry a powerful earl, he agrees to marry Judith. Their marriage is a constant argument, mostly due to Gavin’s failure to understand anything.

I would like to rename this book The Velvet Promise: An Ode to the Stupidity of Men. Let me tell you about our main man Gavin who has no idea that he has been played by a woman named Alice for two years! If anyone ever reads my copy of this book, they will read “he is a moron/idiot” written repeatedly in the margins. Enough about Gavin – he who is undeserving of our beloved heroine – let’s talk about Judith, Queen of Clapbacks.

This book is screaming “men, you may be physically stronger than us, but you will never be as smart as us and you will never break us”. Judith’s mother appears weak, because of how fearful she is of Judith’s father. BUT this woman convinced this horrible man to let her give her only child to a nunnery AND has raised her to become a prioress (prioress = power for any woman in that position). Once that is no longer Judith’s reality, Judith suffers one slight after another. The one thing they can’t take from her is herself. At one point she says “I am Judith. I am no one else, nor do I know how to be anyone else.” She is one of the best heroine’s I have ever read! I loved this book big time.

3.5/5.

Lots of things going on in this verrrrry old school book, but let us pause at the rather hilarious fact that Gavin was all "Alice 5ever" but as soon as Judith got on top he went "FRIENDSHIP ENDED WITH ALICE JUDITH IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND".