romance in which the heroine, a shelteredyo heiress turns in desperation to the nearest strong lord to protect her from the sacking of her castle and attempted marriage by her other strong neighbor, who is a brute.
Her rescuer is Bastard FitzRoger, a formidable warrior and friend of the new king, Henry Beauclerc Henry I, After he takes back her castle for her and she assesses her prospects, the heroine Imogene decides to marry him with the stipulation that she remain in charge of her property of Carrisford.
Things are not straightforward and there is some manufactured angst that is drawn out, Not sure I liked Imogene but she did have a natural intelligence that the author Jo Beverly was able to show us instead of telling us, I also liked that the author made her honest so we avoided "the big misunderstanding" that drives many lazily written Rom novels, Beverly also finally sold the whole "sheltered so much that it explains why the heroine is kinda dumb" excuse when the Heroine is dumb, or at least I bought it.
The hero was great, FitzRoger was practical, and honest if he could be, and his actions were period appropriate, I liked that he was calculating and intelligent in a believable way,
This novel also introduces Renald de Lisle whose story I had read previously in Lord of Midnight for TGRRP,
This medieval tale involves rape themes, disenfranchisement and the husband's total authority over the wife so if you avoid if that is offensive to you,
I thought Dark Champion an enjoyable read, There is a lot of action, Some of the lighthearted moments the couple shared were under great duress, and I thought the addition of humor at these moments was odd and offputting,
The ending with the trial of the Barons and King Henry kinda made the novel for me, tbh,
I didn't love it but was good, enjoyable romance read, Heroine ruined it for me, I liked this author's medieval romances almost as much as Madeleine Hunter's, and on a par with early Claudia Dane, All three authors take advantage of the historically supported power imbalance that lends itself to unPC plot lines and sexual tension but they don't typically subject their medieval heroines to cringemaking brutality at the hands of socalled heroes.
This story crossed the line, but I liked it anyway, I probably need therapy. A Damsels Plight
Orphaned and desperate, Imogen of Carrisford flees when a brutal lord invades and takes possession of her castle, There is only one man she can turn to for help,
A Knight's Rescue
He is FitzRoger of Cleeve, rumored to be a ruthless champion in battle and a tyrannical master, Imogen is stunned at the very sight of his powerful body, yet it is his cool green eyes that penetrate her very soul, making her tremble with both fear and desire.
Sheltered all her life, she needs such a man to defend and protect heryet she dares not trust him to put her desires before his own, But even as she vows independence, boldly standing beside him against treacherous enemies, her defenses crumblefalling helplessly to the gentle fury of her warriors love, I liked Dark Champion's interesting hero and, up until around halfway through the book, the writing was also really good as well, However the heroine drove me up the wall, I understand that the author was trying to be period correct and wanted to add some kind of conflict with the crazy priest and his ridiculous advice to the heroine.
However I had no desire to read about it, It was absolute nonsense what he told her and even worse that she believed him, even though I do know this is a situation that did occur during the middle ages.
Regardless it just made me want to throw the heroine into a lake and I couldn't continue with the book, Now this is more like it, A nice traditional romance novel with the familiar theme of a powerless woman who is forced to seek assistance to right an injustice against herself and her people, The lady Imogen is by turns spoiled, petulant and irrational a magnificent hypocrite and a teenager, Her foil, FitzRoger is stalwart and controlling with words like hard to describe his demeanor and physique, Forced together by circumstances they find themselves married and working out a new relationship in the face of growing threats, Imogen redeems herself to some degree by having a knack for planning and rationality when it serves, But the best part of the book is when FitzRoger, terribly wounded, goes to fight the villain of the book and Imogen knocks him out and gets the soldiers to kill the villain like an animal.
Obviously this is a tremendous slight to her husband's honor and she is behaving quite unwomanly but it is wonderfully appropriate, who hasn't wanted to sock one of these romance heroes one when they insist on going to battle under terrible circumstances SPOILER on rape scene
This medieval story wasst published in.
In this story England's king was King Henryamp the
Duke of Normandy wanted to usurp him, The hero Tyrone
sided w/ the King, Thebad guys sided w/ the Duke,
Beautiful Imogen, sheltered and spoiled, grieved for the
recent death of her father, Lord Bernard, One of the bad
men stormed her castle and subjected her maid to rape,
The h's loyal steward helped her escape and sought help
from a powerful man, Tyrone FitzRoger of Cleeve the H,
Imogen wasand Tyyears her senior, I believe girls
of that era wed around age
Ty helped Imogen retake her castle, These two acted liked
oil and water together, It dawned on Imo that the King
would not allow her to keep/ defend her castle w/o having a
spouse, By process of elimination, she chose Ty,
The author made clear her preoccupation with:
alliances, holdings and preventing war
Imogen dreading the consummation of her marriage
based on witnessing the horrid rape.
I'd rather not read
about rape, even though men exerted their power that
way in that era,
Jo Beverly wrote superior books to this one, I'd gladly
list some of her better books, Strong hero who wasn't a dick, Heroine was hard to like in the beginning but she soon showed what she was made of, At first I was irritated by Imogens petulance,
Then I recall that she is onlyand was sheltered by her nowdeceased father,
She acquits herself later when she firmly takes charge of Carrisford,
I like how Imogen and FitzRogers story unfolded, His nobility, her eventual trust in him, . . their united effort to restore a ruined and ransacked Carrisford as well as the action in the denouement, . . kept me turning pages! I suppose it helped that I was traveling and could actually devote generous chunks of time to reading, I must say, though, I objected to the few times Renald missed Imogen “for good luck”,
I enjoyed the entire series, and appreciated the inclusion of faith by the various characters to guide their actions and reactions, Bad! This book had such potential but the hr ruined it, She was an immature, spoiled brat, She picked stupid fights with the h, even though he saves her many times over, I just couldn't stand her and she doesn't improve till the lastpgs, I gavebc the ending was good, Within the firstpages or so, I was fully prepared to chalk this one up as an indulgent, cheesy romance novel, In some ways, it DID fit the bill, However, I was thoroughly surprised to find myself falling in love with the character of FitzRoger his gift for logic and sarcasm is incredibly appealing, This book does drag a bit in places, but it's definitely a fantastically fun, escapist kind of read, A note to the readers:
For the love of God, please stop treating romance books like they are primary sources or windows into middle ages, The silliness that happens in the modern HF romances does not reflect the reality of middle ages, Women were not chattels. And the reason why virginity mattered was to assure the woman wasn't carrying another man's child because there was no contraception,
I cannot believe I am giving Dark Champ four because aboutof the book was unbearable, repetitive and ridiculous thanks to the heroine, But here lies the crux, The heroine, while insufferable, wasn't the usual chinthrusting Mary Sue, Quite the opposite. She was chinthrusting Eric Cartman, At first it was a welcome change to have this spoiled, egotistical, conniving, mean spirited, greedy heroine, but afterpages of her whining and criticizing every good thing the hero did for her, I started to skim and thought about quitting, I persevered only because the hero was great, and I knew that Beverley planned some sort of transformation for Eric Cartman, And yes she did deliver on that, and it was in parts ridiculous, but Erica Cartman managed to redeem herself, Es que lo ameeeee, la historia de la niña mimada que tiene que madurar a la fuerza en una sociedad donde la mujer no era más que un adorno.
Escrito magistralmente te transporta a la época y te hace vivir todo como en primera persona, Me lo he leído en nada, solo no tiene lasestrellas porque sentí el final muy abrupto, pero de que recomiendo leerlo lo recomiendo! Nebudu lhát, ta střední část byla pro mě utrpením, ale na druhou stranu ti krásně ukázalo jak se spravoval středověký hrad, myšlení žen, náboženský fanatismus.
Ale číst to bylo lehce utrpení, Ale začátek a konec to naštěstí zachránili, A na konci jsem už i Imogen snesla, dokonce si ji i oblíbila, I've enjoyed some of her regency novels, so I picked this up, I did not realize it was going to be a medieval "romance" set ins,
I completely understand that life was hard/brutal for everyone in those times, Killing, domination through rape, forced marriages, marriage solely for land/wealth, women as chattels, women's viriginity as a bargaining tool, droit de seigneur, etc, etc.
That does not mean I want that era romanticized or read a romance set in those times,
I don't care how retroactivley plucky you make her character or how anachronisticly you give her power and make them equals, I'm admitting that accepting feminist revisionism in Regency novels but not in this one is a bit hypocrtical,
Also, I can accept a rape as an act of violence amp war included at the beginning, but then to have her discuss w/ Fitzroger that he may need to forcibly rape her to consummate the marriage was the last straw for me.
And yes, women were beaten by their husbands, But her placid acceptance of it was disturbing to read,
The whipping scene also was hard to read,
It simply doesn't add to my enjoyment to remember the brutality women suffered through in this time, I don't find an ameloration of that "well at least he only whipped me" to be romantic,
Do NOT recommend unless you like the medieval era type romances, Molto molto bello, non banale e ben strutturato, Imogen ad un primo impatto può risultare un po' sciocca, ma è un personaggio dalla crescita credibile e costante e alla fine è adorabile, FitzRoger molto affascinante, senza essere banale, I dialoghi sono stupendi, battibecchi incessanti e quel filo di crudeltà dovuto al periodo storico non disturba,
Molto meglio del primo, Decent read. The 'heroine' is truly wretched thruof it a pouty four year old stamping her foot yelling 'you're not the boss of me' she's appalling really but manages, during the last, to do a.
Me lo tenía que terminar,
Ni tiempo en hacer reseña le dedico, . . Dnf I'm sorry but the heroine irritated the heck out of me shallow, selfish and whiny Great book, I am waffling between.andstars. The hero was awesome and sexy but the heroine annoyed me after a while, and was not a very sympathetic character, which kept this book off my keeper shelf, BUT the plotting was good and there was a lot of nailbiting action, The end really got me nervous and it was pretty intense, So I will go with four, Jo Beverley only wrote four medieval romance novels, and I need to take a minute to be sad about that, because Dark Champion had everything I want in a medieval romance, and reminded me why I love the subgenre as much as I do.
This isn't a nice book, This isn't a pretty book, This is not a gentle book, There's war, and Ms. Beverley pulled no punches in showing us what that entails, not only the heat of battle, but the collateral damage, which is what our heroine, Imogen, has to handle after the death of her father puts her, his heiress, in a precarious position.
What's best for her people,
marriage to an older, respected nobleman, or to a battle scarred bastard, FitzRoger yep, the Fitz stamps "bastard" right there on his name a warrior whose fire matches Imogen's own.
If you're thinking you can tell where the rest of the book is going to go from here, wrongo, Not. Even. Close. Imogen can more than hold her own, She's a smart one, she's brave, and she's also got some rather, ah, we shall say interesting, views on exactly what the marriage entails, which makes the whole consummation part of it a challenge for FitzRoger.
This couple has issues, which stem naturally from who they are and the times in which they live, and it's how they sort out these issues that binds them together as an unstoppable team even a truly dastardly bad guy can't beat.
Not for the faint of heart, or for those who prefer characters, in whatever era, to think and behave likest century people, because these don't, and that's part of what makes the story as compelling as it is.
Highly recommended. Although this isnd in the series it can be read as a stand alone, Copyright. This was a favorite reread back in the day, I still enjoy it amp this is the best romance set in the Dark Ages I've read, JB does an excellent job immersing us into an age of knights amp swords amp fair maidens, Both H/h are intelligent amp good people,
Imogen is only, She's a spoiled amp pampered heiress, But when the way gets rough, she puts on her big girl panties amp tries to get the job done, She's not without faults, but I can excuse her youth amp inexperience, Her father also sheltered her from a lot of life's ugliness, She's a likeable heroine.
Ty is known as a bastard, but was actually born legitimately, He's a hard man, but not without sympathy for Imogen, He's a likeable hero. JB also doesn't resort to the standard at the time of the heroine getting raped by the "hero", Ty is very noble amp gives as much time as he can,
Much can be made of Ty whipping Imogen, However, if he didn't give her one lash it wouldn't have gone well for her, He was well within his rights to beat her to death for what she did she knocked him out with a rock so he couldn't fight the bad guy he was injured amp then had the bad guy killed by her archers.
He lashed her back with her clothes on, He would only give her one lash, There was a jury of his peers that wanted him to do more, Imogen didn't hold it against him amp she wasn't injured,
I didn't hold it against him either amp there's a satisfying HEA, .
Download Dark Champion (Dark Champion, #2) Depicted By Jo Beverley Released As Text
Jo Beverley