Her Banished Knight’s Redemption
In the year 1218, Isabel de Clancey is accosted as a girl while traveling to her betrothed’s home in France. William Geraint, also a child at the time, helps her, though doesn’t learn her name. Years later, Will is tasked with finding the lost de Clancey girl, which leads him to a small town in France where she was adopted under a different name. After much cajoling, she agrees to return to her family in England. The travel across the countryside on horseback is pleasant, excepting the times they get accosted by the same men who contracted Will to find Isabel. Upon reaching La Rochelle, the Templars aid in their escape from their menace and crossing to England.
The plot is a bit convoluted at times, and motives are unclear. While I enjoy reading this time period, I often didn’t feel immersed in 13th-century France or England. The Templar plot took me by surprise, and instead of building to a climax, the topic was dropped and then revisited. It has all the swashbuckling elements needed for a rousing medieval romance, but for me it fell flat.
