THE FALL

Author: Claudia Dain ISBN: 0843952210 9/2004 HISTORICAL Publisher: DORCHESTER/Leisure
Time Period: England - 1165

LEGENDS... They called her Lady of Frost, a fabled beauty whose allure no man could resist; yet neither could any breach her icy reserve. She called him Lord of Nothing, a knight with no land, no family, only a name made great by song and story; a name as a lover unrivaled who could win any maiden, yet never lose his own heart. OF THE FALL... To each, romance was a game, a contest of wit and will, a match to be wagered upon and won at any cost. But in those dark days of shifting loyalties and twisted secrets, seduction was far more than courtly ritual. It was an all-or-nothing play for power in which one misstep could bring a fall. And falling in love was the most dangerous thing a woman could do.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Claudia Dain, in my opinion, weaves a powerfully descriptive tale whenever she writes. THE FALL, her newest release, further cements that truth.

Set in a time which I perceive as one of the most barbaric, this compelling love story takes the form of a "legend". Both the hero and heroine have their own legends to uphold, neither knowing the other's true reason for not folding to love. Their battle of wills takes on a legend of its own, but the outcome, naturally, can only end one way.

Most of this story is a telling of wagers: Who will kiss whom first? Who will fall in love first? Will the hero's nether regions be able to stay erect against the heroine's icy facade? Some of these wagers are a bit obtuse in my opinion, but that is what the characters lives are based upon to some degree. Right or wrong, most of the journey all the characters take is littered with such wagers.

A reader should prepare themselves for some of the graphic scenes in the book. Public consummation of a marriage, for one, is quite a distasteful thing for me to read about. Though it no doubt reflects the times in which the characters lived, I cannot imagine the humiliation some must have felt going through that. There is also a scene that I skipped through (I will not spell it out here, but leave it up to you to peruse on your own) because I could not stomach the content, nor could I understand the victim's reaction so quickly after the event.

Again, all of the blood, violence, and atrocities toward the women featured here, no doubt is due to the pagan 12th century that was. Claudia Dain has done the time period justice in every way. As I have often heard, "Truth is stranger than fiction". I have no doubt that some things portrayed here could have happened to real people.

Shannon Johnson