In terms of the actual story, I liked it a lot, but there was some room for me to have liked it even more. Such traits always recommend an historical fiction author highly to me, as I feel that such attention to detail - when, of course, used judiciously and in the context of the story (and not in the form of flooding one's readers with ALL of one's research, as certain authors tend to do) - demonstrates care and attentiveness that has gone into the manuscript, and as for understanding of the era about which an author writes, I think in an historical fiction author this is absolutely critical, the fine line between fully realising an era and bringing it to life in written form, and creating something that feels anachronistic, confused, disjointed, and as a result not authentic at all - and for me it's important, when reading historical fiction, that it retains plausibility and believability, otherwise I tend to have trouble engaging with the story. In certain respects I found Chadwick's writing style to be reminiscent of Sharon Penman - always a good thing, in my book - in terms of the attention to detail and understanding of the era that Chadwick writes about.
I can't say the quality of writing was surprising or unexpected to me - having heard so much about it already through word of mouth, I had reasonably high expectations, and in fact found the actual quality to fully meet those expectations. Having obtained this one free from my library as an audiobook to listen to on the train ride in and out of London however, I plunged right in.
Having heard consistently good things about Elizabeth Chadwick's books, I was in no doubt that I'd be onto a winner if I ever got round to picking up one of them, but had previously passed them over simply due to the fact of my existing shamefully mountainous to-be-read pile. This is my first Elizabeth Chadwick, and I listened to it as an audiobook free from my local library.
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