by Elizabeth Chadwick

I've enjoyed Elizabeth Chadwick novels before so requested this one because of the author. This one is about William Marshal, whom I didn't know a lot about before reading, in the time of the Crusades. Marshal's lord orders a raid on church riches in order to pay his mercenary soldiers as a practical move, but afterwards Marshal takes a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with his lord's cloak to save both their souls.

The beginning was a little slow for me, but necessary to put events into context. Once the journey begins, Chadwick's engaging writing style brought the characters to life and I was soon engrossed and feeling every challenge and setback as if I were there.

I also learned some history I didn't know before, which is what I look for in Historical Fiction.

The political intrigues as an heir is sought for a dying king of Jerusalem captured me like an addictive soap opera. Everyone vying for favour and a ruler playing people, even his own sister, like chess pieces reflects the era too accurately in a time when alliances were made with marriages and positions could be won or lost through a whim of a king.

I lost a little interest as the romance angle played out and found myself wondering if it was a historical element or something the author put in to have a romance angle, but overall the story was interesting and covered a lot of historical ground.

Crossed, Book .5

I Picked Up This Book Because: Random iBooks selection

The Characters:

Grace Brooks:
Hunter Reeve:


The Story:

I hate to quit but I can’t. The storytelling is so choppy I constantly find myself rereading because I feel like I missed something. Hunter low key annoyed me and Grace is full of secrets.. I think.

The Random Thoughts:

*DNF so no rating

This story is a continuation from When Things Go Wrong. It picks up from where that book ended.

Scar comes crashing back into Julia's life in such a fun, LOL way, too bad he doesn't realize it is her. When Julia cannot get Scar off of her mind, she decides to head to the strip club Hounds (the same place he was at when he came into the ER) in hopes of seeing him. While Julia is scared and nervous to be in Hounds because of her past, she has a much stronger desire to see Scar.

When she sees Scar all those feelings come crashing back and he seems just as excited to see her. Quickly these two realize that maybe there is more to these feelings than they realized. Too bad neither of them do relationships and Julia has sworn off men for the last two years. Scar wants to be with Julia any way he can and is convinced he can win her over. For the first time in his life he wants to try and have a relationship. Too bad things from Julia's past seem to keep getting in the way. When danger starts to affect Julia's life, Scar has had enough and decides to go into alpha mode.

It will take a crazy, unthinkable story line to get these two to a happy ending but boy is it worth the ride. I just loved both of these broken characters. It took them a long time to realize that what both of them were always searching for was just each other! This story will make you laugh, cry and swoon.