" Her's lord's own scent of lavender and warm masculinity.


"Warm masculinity"? You honestly used that? I wasn't aware that was a thing.

Silly phrasing aside, this was okay. I didn't dislike it quite as much as The Healer's Apprentice.But I'm seeing an annoying trend in this lady's books. Perfect main characters that have been wronged in some way, overly Christian main characters, weird creepy dude A) stalking the main girl or B) trying to take advantage of but then love interest that isn't a love interest yet saves the girl and she doesn't trust him but he's always good looking and he treats her with kindness and he's "gentle" and she starts falling for him against all the odds and they can't be together because of reasons and "God save me, I'm so attracted to him/her" and then they end up together because true love prevails.

Main thought in this one: Get thee to a nunnery. Seriously, Annabel. Shoo.

And then (This doesn't actually affect the rating) there was the Catholic priest that was all sexist and "all woman are pigs and you can't read the Bible cause you're a woman!" Am I saying that all members of the Church are perfect and that there weren't priests like that, esp in the Middle Ages? Nope. But it doesn't give a good message. And of course Ranulf is all "READ MY BIBLE, PRETTY SERVANT" straight after.

So no, not recommended.