Again a great read, especially since I read both the middle of the series and finished and then read the first 3 books. Happily I now have them all and can reread them another year on my kindle. Am very much hoping that Sarah Hawkswood is busily writing another in the series.
Book #3 tells the story of how Lord Hugh Bradecote and Lady Christina met and ended up together.
I started a book later when they were betrothed and persevered through the rest of the books- Happily I must add!
The characters are well developed and engaging in their interactions, and the author does a marvelous job with both history and period dialogue. It's not often that I buy up a whole series to read at once.
Read this for my new reading group at our library. It was not my usual reading genre but was well written, obviously since it won multiple awards including the Edgar Award in 2010. A bit stark and allegorical but a compelling read nevertheless.
I had mixed feelings at the ending, but they were mostly positive, as it seemed their lives would definitely improve. Johnny's twin sister Alyssa would not return, nor would his father but there was some closure .
Johnny's father had not left his family, but was killed in his search for his daughter. Alyssa's death was not the horror story it seemed it was but sudden and accidental. The cover-up of her death rocked Johnny's world, but his mother's return to stability and the presence of Detective Hunt were positive.
It was difficult to put it aside once I got into it, although I mostly read it in the daytime. I'm a comfort reader also, I read mysteries but medieval and ancient history mysteries have characters long dead and in a different setting than North Carolina.
From the publisher:"Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he’d been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is---confident in a way that he can never fully explain."
