Investigative reporter Kendra O'Brien knows its a dream, so when Navarre de Galliard charges up in chain mail, she does what any modern career girl would do--she makes a pass at him. Only then does she realize that she isn't in Kansas anymore. This is 13th-century England, and he thinks she's the wicked witch!
Tess Mallory still believes in fairies, so she strives to make her books as magical as possible, filled with romance, humor, history, fun, and fantasy. Her life has been pretty magical, too. Not perfect, but truly blessed. She's a breast cancer survivor married to a guy so understanding, his name should be in lights, their three children love her in spite of the dragon shirts she loves to wear, and she has a precious granddaughter. Tess and her family live in the Texas hill country. Make her day by dropping her a note at tessmallory@yahoo.com.
First time I have read anything by Ms. Mallory. Kendra travels back to the days of Richard the Lionheart and becomes involved in attempting to thwart a treasonous plot. Having not read any blurbs beforehand (unusual for me) I was pleasantly surprised at the direction things went right out of the gate. The story is good and definitely kept me interested. Admittedly, I found it a little long, but I can't really say what, if anything, i would skip to change that. One thing I found really appealing was the quality of writing. So many new books in the TTR genre are 1st person POV and self-published. Personally i do not care for 1st person PoV and skip a book if I find it to be fulll of mistakes. Not the case here. I definitely recommend this book.
The story itself was good. Kendra gets thrust into the Legend of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. However the main hero is not Robin of Locksley, but a Knight named Navarre de Galliard.
My only issue was the protagonist. For 4/5ths of the book, Kendra didn't do much but bursts into sobs every time anything dangerous happened--especially where Navarre was concerned. She's one of those female leads that read like a brave heroine at first glance, but ultimately leaves it up to the hero to save her. She hardly provided any help to Robin or Nevarre save for telling them of the future (but even then the information wasn't entirely helpful), knocking Garrick off-balance (but not the gun out of his hand), and shining a mirror's reflected sunlight into Garrick's face (but Nevarre still had to kill him). I mean, considering how many times she was pressed up against Garrick, you'd think it'd cross her mind to try and grab for the gun.
And good lord, doesn't anyone whisper in this book?! Garrick kept overhearing every important conversation, which gave him an advantage.
My complaints aside, this was still an enjoyable read. The Robin Hood aspect was creatively thought out. I have read other books by Tess Mallory and while I haven't been totally in love with them, they are still well-written and a great way to pass the time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A wonderful romantic time swept novel! A pleasure to find myself among Robin Hood and Lady Marian. Although the main characters were incredibly exciting themselves, Navarre and Kendra. Decidedly more realistic than most with what woman really went through in those times, Mallory was not afraid to write it and it made for a better read. Though sometimes I did wonder how the Sheriff of Nottingham kept his hands to himself as much time he spent alone with Kendra and wanting her as badly. A great ending and I look forward to my next one.
Honestly, I was bored at first. But as the story progressed, I finally can't just put down the book. I especially love Kendra's practical character and how she is so a woman in the story. She is strong-willed and most of the time reckless. Nevarre, is okay although I laughed at his reaction towards Kendra when he finds that he couldn't get rid of her image. I'll give this story of a damsel in distress and a knight in tarnished armor a 5 out of 5. It's just unique and pretty funny for a first book of Tess Mallory that I've read. I can't wait to read more!
The story itself was pretty good, but what I really loved was the author's logic. She had her heroine well-equipped and had logical reasons why. She had logical reasons behind the actions of her characters. There was no being jolted out of the story by the sheer stupidity of some character or other.