Tuesday, June 24, 2014

A Triple Knot





Joan of Kent was the cousin of King Edward III of England. After her father is killed for his treason, she becomes the ward of the king, and he plans to use her as a bargaining chip in a strategic marriage. Joan dislikes his choice for her, and secretly arranges to marry one of the king's knights to thwart the plots that surround her. Unfortunately for Joan, this creates more problems for her. She must find a way to convince her powerful relatives of the validity of her marriage.

I enjoyed this novel about Joan of Kent. I thought Campion took an interesting part of history and made a very engaging story. The author based her book off several questions about the life of Joan. She mentions them in the author's note, and while I agree they are interesting, I will not mention them here so the ending will not be given away to those unfamiliar with Joan's story. The author used her questions to create a believable and engrossing tale.

I thought it was a well researched book, which I really like in my historical fiction. I appreciated the details that the author provided in the story. Campion did an excellent job incorporating the facts into the story, so the information was present, but did not slow the book at all. There was great balance between the story and facts included. Reading this made me excited to read the author's first book: The King's Mistress. I am now very curious about Joan's life, and look forward to finding some biographies about her to read.

I would have liked it if there had been more information at the end of the book about what was real, and if anything greatly deviated from what is known about Joan's life. I always appreciate that in historical fiction. The author mentions a bibliography that can be found on her website, but it would have been nice if it had been included in the book.

If you like historical fiction, I recommend reading this book.

**I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books for this review**

*Receiving a free copy does not change my review. It merely provides me with a book I would not have gotten to as quickly or heard about otherwise.

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