If you love Medievals, definitely check out By Royal Command. Set in Anglo-Saxon England, a very colorful and under-utilized time period, this novel caught my interest from the dark and moody beginning and held it to the very end. It wasn’t perfect, but it was quite good. As the novel opens, we immediately get a…
In history books I’ve read, the Medieval mindset in some ways seems quite foreign to the modern American way of thinking. The veil between the physical world and the supernatural feels a bit thinner; it’s a world where curses and magic coexist with daily life. The Viking’s Sacrifice is not a paranormal historical in the…
While reading this book, I alternated between liking it and…not. The book is light-hearted, more of a romantic comedy, in a style similar to G.A. Aiken. If you aren’t prepared to laugh at the hero seeking out the heroine’s “woman-channel” as his “sap runs thick and hot” on the seventh page, then perhaps this is…
Narrated by Josephine Bailey Dream of Me was the first true romance I read and therefore holds a special place in my list of romance favorites. I was enthused to discover it in audio format but after listening to Josephine Bailey’s excellent performance, I was absolutely enthralled. Now a comfort listen for me, this Viking…
Though she has started to get more attention, I still consider Helen Kirkman to be something of a buried treasure. Her distinctive style fits her chosen time period well, and every time I pick up one of her books, I feel transported back to the Dark Ages and the clashes between various English peoples and…
Untamed continues Helen Kirkman’s Warriors of the Dragon Banner series. These men serve King Alfred, King of Wessex and the lone English kingdom to hold out against the Viking invasions. Untamed explores issues of family estrangements, loyalties and what binds us to another person. Kirkman also adds an element of mysticism to the series as…
Although Fearless is my first Helen Kirkman book, I have given her other books serious consideration in the past because of their outstanding covers vividly portraying Dark Age male virility. Now I am wondering what I may have missed by sticking to my rule of never buying a book based solely on its cover. Her…
Destiny is set in 875AD – and the Vikings hold most of eastern England. When the story begins Elena, a captive of the Viking leader Kraka, has just escaped and is found while on the run by Berg, an East Anglian warrior now exiled from his lands. Elena then saves Berg in a skirmish with…
In the past I have lamented what I see as a disturbing sort of sameness in recent historical romance releases. Lately I have been craving something a little less light and fluffy, a little more dark or unusual. In Helen Kirkman’s latest romance, I think I have found it. Though parts of the middle of…
It’s always pleasant to find a book that enchants you when you least expect it. When I picked up Daughter of Gold, I had no idea what I’d find because the cover made it seem as if the book could be historical, a fantasy, or perhaps a little of both. What I got was a…