Tuesday Teaser: Lords of the White Castle by Elizabeth Chadwick

Do you ever sit down and read through your own blog posts? Every now and again I like to do so, and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by what I read and other times I cringe! Today I took a few minutes to go through my past posts about Elizabeth Chadwick. The thing that stood out is that when I do post about her books, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive and filled with praise at the way that medieval life comes to life in the pages of her books. Whilst this isn't a review as such, I can guarantee if I was to get around to writing one it would be another positive one.

I have been working my way through her back list very slowly. I could have read more of her books, but the thing is that I know that once I have finished then I will have to wait for each new book. By not devouring them all, which is definitely tempting, I know that I will still have a Chadwick fix for a little while yet!

The interesting thing for me is that I think this book seems to be something of a turning point for Elizabeth Chadwick. As far as I can remember, prior to this, Chadwick populated her books with real historical figures, but the main characters were fictitious. In this book, the main male character is Fulke Fitzwarin and he is a real figure from history and has been suggested as a possibly inspiration for Robin Hood. You can also clearly see the transition that the author is making from writing meaty historical romances with strong historical themes to meaty historical fiction with strong romantic themes.

I have a number of passages marked to choose a teaser from. In the end, I decided to go with this teaser from page 228:

I told you that we should have ridden straight to Whittington when Papa died and taken FitzRoger then," William muttered as they led their horses across the ward and found a boy to tend them.

"Hindsight is a wondrous thing,' Fulke sneered. "Likely we'd have ended our lives swinging from a gibbet."

"Well, if you think there is going to be a happy outcome from this, you're a greater fool than you've ever taken me for."

Fulke rounded on him with bunched fists and Jean hastily put his wiry frame between the. "Peace!" he hissed. "We're not clear of the guards yet, and you do yourselves no favours by this childish brangling. If you cannot handle yourselves, then what use are you going to be before John?"

Fulke clamped his jaw until the muscles showed in two rigid grooves below his cheekbones. "You do well to remind me, Jean," he said with a stiff nod. He looked at William. "We need to be united by our brotherhood, not split by our differences of opinion. Are you ready to go within?"

William wriggled his shoulders within the thickly padded gambeson. "No point in coming just to stay outside." It was the nearest he would come to conciliation.

Do you have an author who you want to rush through their booklist, but you also want to take your time to savour?