I'm happy to welcome historian Sharon Bennett Connolly to my blog today with a fantastic post on the daughters of William Marshal as part of her Ladies of Magna Carta blog tour!

This was going to be a three star rating until the last page, then it became a four star because the ending wasn't happily-ever-after fuzzy-wuzzy but chilling and I like books like that. The story itself was quite gruesome and dark like other reviewers have said, this is probably the author's darkest story yet but there were no great surprises, hence the initial three star rating.

The three star rating is a temporary rating because this book will definitely need some pondering and possibly a reread or two.I have to admit to getting lost in the philosophical discussions and the several threads didn't help the flow of the novel for me personally. Everything tied up neatly at the end (I think) but this wasn't an easy book by any means.