Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) By Elizabeth Kingston
Wales is conquered, and Eluned has lost everything: her country, her husband, her hope. All that remains is vengeance, and she will stop at nothing to have it. Certain there is no trace within her of the idealistic girl who loved Robert de Lascaux a lifetime ago, she agrees to marry him to advance the fortunes of her son, to avoid the nunnery, and most importantly - as an easy way to gain access to the man upon whom she will avenge Wales.
When Robert is asked to marry the woman he has loved for eighteen years, he never hesitates. But the lady who greets him at the altar has so little in common with the girl he adored that he begins to doubt that there is anything left of her bold and passionate younger self. Marriage to her might gain him the fortune and status his family has always wanted, but no wealth has ever mattered to him as much as Eluned has. And she, it seems, does not want him at all.
Trapped in a web of intrigue, revenge, and desire, they cannot forget their past – but can they share a future? The fascinating world of medieval Wales is continued in this riveting companion novel to The King's Man. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2)
She had come to believe there was no such thing as a good death. There was only death, and it was always foul, and served no purpose but ti clear way for new souls who would die in their turn.
Having only just finally read THE KING'S MAN a week ago, I was so happy knowing that the end wasn't the end. That a second Welsh Blades book was waiting for me. While Gwenllian and Ranulf's ending was wonderful and perfect I still wanted more of them, more of their happy ending. So that's why I was pretty damn disappointed to open up FAIR, BRIGHT, AND TERRIBLE and discover it was Eluned, Gwenllian's mother, that would be the focus of book two.
If she must choose only one dream to make real, she would choose a fearless daughter over an adoring lover.
But that disappointment only lasted like.. two chapters.
The world was not built for her, that it would try and try again to crush her -- and no one would save her from it. She must save herself, or be ground into the dust.
Not only is this fantastic because it features an older couple, and a second chance, but it gave a lot of dimension to a character I thought to be pretty straight forward. Eluned is anything but. She's fierce, she's patriotic, she's devastated, and she's ruthless. Pitched against a man who is so purely good, so oblivious either because of hope or nostalgia, it's a fantastic dynamic. Throw in some unresolved tension, a fierce love, and it really just rounds out this whole package.
If you would love me, you cannot love only the woman who lies with you among the flowers and laughs and sings. You must love also the woman who will bring the whole world to wreck and ruin if she loses you again, and who will scorch the earth to save you.
I was completely unprepared for how much I fell in love with these characters, and how happy I was that both Gwenllian and Ranulf made their appearances, and how much more I want from this world. For as long as THE KING'S MAN has been on my kindle (sooo long!), Kingston is still a new-to-me author and even though her other historicals are not medieval, I fully intend to devour them anyway. I love her writing, I love her characters, the strength of her women, I and love that she's made me cry in both of these books. I full expect both of the Welsh Blades books will find their way onto my shelf very soon. I can only imagine they get even better with rereads and I look forward to experiencing them in audio (Boulton!), too.
Highly recommend. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) 53% dnf
I was really hoping for more of Gwenllian and Ranulf from book 1. No such luck. I'm also found this installment of the series incredibly boring and the heroine very unlikeable. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) Review written June 6, 2017
5 Stars - Terrific! I'm stunned and thankful
Book #2
The second in Elizabeth Kingston medieval romance series Welsh Blades. — Fair, Bright, and Terrible is the second book in this series and this time is it about Eluned, the mother of the warrior heroine Gwenllian of Ruardean in the first book, The King's Man (4.4 stars). Back then a novel I was both touched, stunned and very fascinated by. (Not a plot spoiler: )
The always excellent narrator then, and here also, is Mr Nicholas Boulton. He did it simply fantastic in the first book. (Don't miss to try some of the audiobooks he narrates, for example Laura Kinsale's). ~ I've so much looked forward to start this pretty newly published 8:24 hours audiobook.
... And? I LOVED it.
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A second chance love topic is usually great for me ... even better when with older mature main characters.
1283, Wales is conquered...
« When Robert de Lascaux is asked to marry the woman he has loved for eighteen years, he never hesitates. No wealth has ever mattered to him as much as Eluned has. But she, it seems, does not want him at all. Trapped in a web of intrigue, revenge, and desire, they cannot forget their past - but can they dare to share a future? »
‘Even more amusing was how she had once fervently believed she would never forget a single moment of those six months, two weeks, and two days. ... And thirteen hours.’
Fair, Bright, and Terrible is about a man and a woman (~ 40-45) living their lives nearly 750 years. Characters who gets a second chance for marital love and happiness in a time when honor, the power of Good's word, the church, the kings and who ruled land was most important.
... A dark time when we get to know two strong characters with suffered souls, since long broken hearts and too little true chances to romantic moments in their daily lives.
... Two adults who've seen and experienced too much blood, death, war and people's suffering.
... A man and a woman that never really had the opportunity to choose what they themselves wanted.
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‘Eluned stared at the cold stars and tried to remember that brief moment in time, so long ago, when her world was a song. For six months, she had lived in that song. Six months, two weeks, and two days. “And about thirteen hours, I think,” she said to the stars. How amusing, that she could remember such a thing.’
“I ask you will not forget the woman who loved you with abandon, lest I forget her too. I ask…”
Her breath caught as she looked at him and saw the careful reserve on his face. “I ask too much, because you are right when you say I dream no small dreams. I am greedy beyond reason, that I should ask to be your lover as well as your wife.”
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Wow!! Just wow, this author- narrator combo is hereafter on my highest wish-for-more audiobooks list.
In my opinion was Fair, Bright, and Terrible a PERFECT audiobook listening. Absolutely formidable nicely written and told. Also impressively great performed by the narrator Nicholas Boulton.
You'll get grand lovers meet moments. Heat, steam and intense emotions. The best of best kind of interesting characters, the once you can't but care and feel for. Add a historical drama set in a old fascinating dark time you don't visit that often. I wished it to never end (even if I wanted and urged for a wonderful heartbreaking HEA scene). I cross my fingers it will be more books like this one in this series (more or less standalone stories with new love couples) by Elizabeth Kingston.
Of course a high-five and many stars from me.
Oh! — My heart is still pounding after all those intense feelings in this medieval drama. Higly recommended for admirers of fictional romances that leave you with much much more than just sweet wonderful never ending grand love. Fair, Bright, and Terrible gave me exactly that.
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I LIKE - marvelous good audiobook narrators doing good books even better Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) Very interesting note from the author why she wrote this story. Thank you Kathie for pointing this to me. http://www.elizabethkingstonbooks.com...
What worked for me:
1. The vivid atmosphere that the author created. The history in this book is not just some theatrical prompt, or endless recital of historical facts but living, breathing, and ever changing stormy surrounding.
2. Characterization of the heroine that stayed consistent with her portrayal in book #1 The King's Man.
What didn’t work for me:
1. Romance.
2. See #2 above.
I loved The King’s Man. When I learned that the mother of the heroine from The King’s Man is the heroine of this story, I was both excited and apprehensive. Excited because how many medieval romances are out there with a 40-year-old heroine? What a revolutionary concept! My apprehension was for a simple fact that I didn’t like Eluned in the previous book. I was hoping to change my mind. Well, it didn’t happen. Even though I understood Eluned’s actions and motivations, she didn’t endure me to herself as a person and, for sure, not as a heroine of romance.
The novel starts where the previous one ended -a final Welsh rebellion in 1282, during which Edward I conquered Wales definitively.
A fiercely patriotic Eluned is numb as she sees her countrymen being captured and killed by Edward’s troops. Her hope for independent Wales is lost forever. Her numbness didn’t last long. It was replaced by a single-minded thought of revenge and she would stop at nothing to have it. And revenge is a driving force, main motivation to everything she does and to everyone who stands in her way pretty much throughout the entire story.
You noticed I didn’t mention a hero of the story, Robert. It is because his star-power is dimmed in comparison to Eluned. Her strength and determination is so powerfully portrayed that it left Robert in a supporting role despite his POV being well represented. Where the previous story also featured a strong female character, it pared her with an equally strong male. It didn’t happen here. This is one of the number of reasons why romance didn’t work for me. The other reasons?
Overall, I think this book would be better characterized as a study on evolution of revenge than a historical romance. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) This was pretty goddamned spectacular.
Elizabeth Kingston has some serious writing chops and yet again (as with book one in this series -The King’s Man) she’s managed to write something which feels authentically medieval. It’s a classic example of a book which, if it just had a tragic ending and less sex, would be lauded as ‘literature’ or ‘women’s fiction’ and as a result find a much bigger audience. A lot of historical romance feels recycled and derivative (not necessarily a criticism - therein lies much of the comfort) - but Kingston’s writing is completely unique.
The story here is remarkable as well. Somehow Kingston has managed to write a romance which is all at once a marriage of convenience - lovers reunited - slow burn.
She manages to make the reader believe in the magic of the first love between our H/h, then she manages to turn it into a marriage of convenience with which neither party is very happy and then she manages to make the reader positively keen for these two to work their shit out and get back to each other. Most writers cannot get one of these tropes correct - she does all three and she does them really well.
There’s a strong plot laying behind all of that as well. I thought the first book had some flabby plot issues but this was very smooth.
The star of the show is our heroine, Eluned. I mean, first off, she’s 40 - which, praise be! She’s a mother of two grown children, one who she barely knows and the other who she shaped to become a warrior only to see her choose an entirely different path (the heroine of book one in this series). She’s widowed and about to lose the place she’s ruled alone for many years. Her country is lost to the English and she’s seen nothing but death. In short, she’s At The End Of Her Tether. She’s had one too many battles and has one mission left. That mission isn’t romance - it’s revenge. This story is really about watching Eluned come back to herself - not go back to who she was when she first met and loved our hero, Robin - but rather to recognise that she can take control of her future and become a version of that young woman, with his help. She also makes all of these changes and positive decisions whilst still being an absolute badass. She rescues the hero at the end of this book and it’s fist-pumpingly awesome.
Then there’s Robin. Let’s face it, Robin has less going on than Elunad. He’s a less complex character. But it doesn’t matter because he’s obsessed with our heroine. He’s made strong by his love for her and he never gives up on her. He has to reconcile his memories with the inevitable changes wrought by the passage of time but he does so without any malice or blame. He’s inherently and wonderfully likeable.
Together the romance between these two is just a marvellous conflagration of longing and nostalgia. They’re hopeful and then they’re lost. They muddle along and then they have these moments of perfect connection. It was angsty and delicious and wonderful.
So, I suppose after all that praise the question must be asked and answered: Why on earth isn’t this five stars? It feels wholly unfair to say it’s too clever, but that is kind of the reason. I don’t see myself ever rereading it, or holding parts of it with me, so I cannot give it the elusive five stars.
Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2)
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I'm not crying. Well, maybe a little choked up. Okay, okay, I'm crying.
So I rarely love a straight-up teddy bear hero. But dang man, Robert de Lascaux manages to be sexy as hell with his fierce devotion to both the memory and a woman that he spent 18 years loving.
I wondered who on Earth needed Eluned to get her happy ending, but I realized quickly I'd made a mistake. This was something we all need. A woman of her time, plotting and deceiving, a woman of her time brilliantly manipulating and born the wrong gender. A woman of her time, with a woman's tools who we would not think twice about her actions were she a man. Her redemption isn't swift or ignored, for she still bears the burden and disappointment from King's Man. She's cold, she's calculating, but there's something beneath the surface that loves deeply and intensely and I fell quickly and easily in love with her character.
And I didn't read the blurb, I had no idea this was second chance, and goddamn, was it ever successful--grief and respect for memory while making peace with the people they are now and could become. The longing, the angst, and the reconciliation were believable. They were lovely, and this book was a romantic treat. Even better? Nicholas Boulton performing it of course. All my fingers and toes crossed Desire Lines will be released in audio w/ him performing it as well... Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) I've given this an A+ for narration and an A- for content at AudioGals
Fair, Bright, and Terrible is the sequel to Elizabeth Kingston’sThe King's Man, and is, like its predecessor, set in and around the final years of the Welsh struggle for independence against the military might of England under King Edward I. The book is an engrossing mix of historical romance and historical fiction; the author has obviously and extensively researched the political and military history of the time and the second-chance love story between two older and wiser protagonists – they’re both in their forties – is expertly woven throughout. But make no mistake – this is a gritty and angsty story about a proud, scheming woman who is so entirely focussed on revenge that she is prepared to sacrifice her happiness and her life if need be in order to obtain it; and her almost fanatical desire for vengeance to the exclusion of all else makes her difficult to like.
Eluned of Ruardean was not a popular character in The King’s Man, in large part thanks to the way in which she had so sternly controlled her daughter’s – Gwenllian’s – life and insisted on training her to be the saviour of the Welsh people, without really considering that Gwenllian was entitled to a say in her own life. She is still not the most sympathetic of women, but she’s a fascinating character nonetheless; driven, uncompromising and self-aware, and by the end of the book I was won over and seriously impressed by the author’s ability to have made such a flawed character both admirable and likeable.
You can read the rest of this review at AudioGals. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2)
4.5 Stars
This was an unexpectedly quick read. After what was the final conflict, I had expected more intrigue and contention to come between Eluned and Royalist Mortimer. While I was surprised by what felt like a swift storyline, I wasn't at all disappointed. The romance was heartrending and lovely, full of angst and longing. Eluned earned her place as a respected heroine after her backhanded machinations in the previous book. Robert was the ever-loyal hero to Eluned after 18 years of separation and no prospects of a reunion. They were both written perfectly and I was entirely wrapped up in their story. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) I really liked this book. What a lot of people don't know about England in the thirteenth century is that one of the big political battles during that time period was the king and co going after the noble's land. Prior to this book taking place, the Magna Carta had been pretty much forcibly shoved down the Monarchy's throat.
The Monarchy, as monarchies are wont to do, did not appreciate having legal restraints on their power. Since they could do very little to limit the nobility via the law, they chose another route. This involved grabbing or confiscating as much of the noble's lands and assets as they could . Cause at this time, you can have all the legal authority you want, but if you have no money or manpower to enforce it, you don't have anything at all.
Eluned is the woman who spends years training her daughter to lead an army and maneuvering to keep Wales independent of English hegemony. She is not wrong in realizing that English annexation is not going to end well for the Welsh natives, sadly she is proven correct and the opening of this book is an excellent narration of the grief one might feel when an entire way of life has been lost.
Now Eluned has a new goal, she wants redress for the slaughter of her people and there is no law left that will give it to her, she is going to have to rely on other means and a considerable intelligence to find a solution to her dilemma. Eluned was absolutely outstanding in her passionate convictions and her indomitable will to have revenge for the wrongs done her. And I got that, cause what was done to the Welsh people in England's conquest for power was pretty reprehensible, and it wasn't even done in the name of making the world a better place.
Edward the 1st wanted Wales to increase his own wealth and power base and sadly he and his progeny let crown favorites do horrible things in the King's name. In the years that followed, the rape of Wales by the Mortimers was comparable to William the Conqueror's Harrowing of the North- and it was all done for monetary profit. Thus was life in England and Wales in the thirteenth century.
(I think another reason I loved this book was I am a huge amateur medieval historian -- it is one of my favorite time periods, so much of what we consider modern life evolved during this era, and EK nailed it on the research. She did a really, really good job and in these days of wallpaper historicals, that is a wonderful rareity.)
The h and H in this story are also highly believable characters that I got seriously invested in. I already liked the h from her role in the first book, (and I was a bit pissed with the daughter who was the h in the first if you want to know the truth.) Eluned was such a strong woman, I wouldn't mind having her backbone when I grow up.
She made hard decisions and she did it pretty ruthlessly, but that was very much the time period where might was definitely right. She was ruthless because she had to be, and I had a lot of appreciation for her strength of will. I think some people may be put off because Eluned is not nice, she isn't loving and she isn't long on compassion- she is very much a leader and there is no mercy in her at all.
The H in this case is a bit beta, and I can see why Eluned needed that. Eluned is a Alpha woman, she is also older and set in her ways, she probably wouldn't have had a very happy union with the majority of the men in that time period - the H, tho he is a bit weak, is also the only one who can really peel away the formidable iron layers Eluned encases herself with and get her to show some actual tender emotion. Plus he is probably the only man who loves her just as she is, hard, ruthless, determined but also fiercely devoted to those she protects (and that includes a LOT of people as she has been running one area or another for a very long time. )
The build up of the love story was very believable as both the H and h get to know each other and the h essentially married the H to further her quest for vengeance. The H had been in love with his ideal of the h for years. So needless to say, finding out how she really is comes as a bit of a shock.
They do manage to find an enduring love tho and I liked how they both adjusted and compromised to reach out to each other and find a HEA. I also loved the scene where Eluned has to save the H - her solution is RUTHLESS, but I liked it cause is demonstrated just how committed to the H Eluned really was.
If you don't like uber Alpha badass ladies, skip this one. If you like a well researched medieval with an older couple, (having older nobility still alive over 40 wasn't unusual, especially if a woman did not endure multiple pregnancies from a young age, most young medieval noble women died from childbirth or it's complications,) this might be a book for you. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2) 4.5 or A-
The companion novel to The King's Man is every bit as well-written and absorbing as the first in the series and shares similar concerns in its examination of iconoclastic women surviving and even thriving in such a hostile historical period. While both novels are heroine-centric, Fair, Bright, and Terrible is probably even more so given Eluned's larger-than-life persona as well as Robert's fairly astonishing desire for her to be the hero of this story. There are plenty of romances today that foreground equality as a central feature of a romance, but few and far between are those that feature a hero so utterly comfortable standing to the side. I had my own biased moments that really forced me to think about constructions of gender when I wondered if Robert was too weak for Eluned, too lacking in ambition and drive even. The novel flips gender expectations in many ways by constructing Eluned as ambitious, to the point of ruthlessness at times, while creating a cheerful and somewhat passive man who is more content pondering what makes a fine wine than he is scheming over territorial acquisitions. I thought it was particularly striking that early in the novel in flashback we witness Robert falling in love with Eluned at the moment when Eluned challenges him in public to find a passion worth dying for. That Robert falls in love with her inner strength is such a stark contrast to the majority of romances that focus on conventions of beauty and desire. These conventions are certainly there in the novel but they are wonderfully overlaid by more complex ideas about what makes a woman and a man desirable. I decided in the end that allowing Eluned to shine was actually a sign of Robert's own strength, and I ultimately loved him so much for it.
It’s hard not to contrast this book with the first in the series, as they seem to bookend each other in important ways around constructions of female desirability. While Gwenllian reigns over men as a warrior, she is also deemed “unwomanly” in her world. Eluned scoots around that problem by faking “womanly” behavior but secretly scheming brilliantly and constantly in private. She is a bit of a Rorschach test for most of the men in the book who see what they expect to see in her. Robert is the exception in that he is depicted many times waiting for Eluned to reach out to him. I had to think a bit too about the flaws in Eluned that made her an unlikely heroine, particularly her selfishness in molding Gwenllian into a warrior out of her own desires for power. Part of this flaw in Eluned’s character is mitigated by a clearer explanation in the second book that Eluned feared for her daughter’s safety and wanted her to be a woman who feared no man. However, Gwenllian was still also meant to be a savior for Wales, and that mother-daughter struggle rendered Eluned by far the selfish one. I wanted so much to like Eluned unreservedly but in this respect, she remains flawed and complex, and I ended up deciding that it’s okay for a main character to be complicated, even when some complications are negative.
There were two aspects of the book I did not particularly care for, though they might speak more to my own preferences as a reader. The first is that Eluned is consumed by a thirst for revenge, and that is a negative motivation that drives much of the novel. (I really feared for her at one point in the book, and if I had been reading this in paper rather as an e-book, I know I would have flipped ahead for reassurance!) Also, the second-chance romance aspect was the other issue that I did not enjoy nearly as much as the romance of The King’s Man. Second-chance romances carry so much weight, and it takes a good part of the novel for Eluned and Robert to find their way to each other. So, slight deductions on what is otherwise a beautifully written book. I admire Kingston for tackling tough themes. Our world continues to struggle with acceptance for powerful women, especially women who are politically ambitious, and so I especially have to applaud the author for creating such a dynamic heroine that asks readers to think about what expectations and biases we bring to this story. Fair, Bright, and Terrible (Welsh Blades, #2)
