The Knight’s Courtship
It is the 12th century, and Ivy Rutherford, who hopes to find favor as a female troubadour at the court of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, is ordered to instruct the notorious Roger Stancliff in the rules of courtly love. Despite the complications posed by their wariness of one another, their difference in class, King Henry’s unexpected arrival and capture of the queen, and Ivy’s abduction by Roger’s bitter foe, the pair not only falls passionately in love, but consummates it with uncourtly exuberance.
The novel touches upon some of the problems confronting women in the area of love and marriage during the Middle Ages, but it pays scant attention to these and the rest of the medieval background, focusing instead upon the lovers. The heroine is an attractive combination of romantic idealism and common sense, but even if she is deserving, the dangers and obstacles to her happiness melt away rather too readily.
This is a pleasant light read for lovers of Harlequin romance.
