Inglaterra y Normandía, siglo XII. La joven Ellenweore sueña con convertirse algún día en la mejor forjadora de espadas de Europa.
Desde niña, Ellenweore destaca manejando la forja de su padre. Y, aunque en plena Edad Media, a una mujer nunca se le permitiría destacar en tal oficio, las penosas circunstancias que vivirá la acercarán a su sueño. Tendrá que huir a Normandía, haciéndose pasar por chico, y allí aprenderá los secretos de su arte, conocerá el violento mundo de los torneos y las intrigas nobiliarias y hallará al amor de su vida, Guillaume el Mariscal, para quien en el futuro forjará la mítica espada Athanor.

this is a re-read for me, but I am thoroughly ejoying it second time around.
Ellen wants be a blacksmith and make swords, especially for King Henry II. She has many male blacksmiths shaking their heads and refusing her work. She has fled from her native England only to run into William Marshall and Thibault de Siegney. Thibault rapes her, but William makes love to her (she has his child.) ( )

The book suffer from being poorly edited. Too much stuff, too many people whom I don't care about, and too many looks into everyday life, which don't bring anything to the story, and pull the story ahead.

What I did like was the bits about forging, and the glances into the 12c society.

I read the first half over a weekend, and then left it for two months without even missing it. Or even wondering how the Ellen & her men fared. ( )

It's a story of the 12th century - the life of a young girl who becomes a blacksmith against all odds.. The story takes place over a period of 22 years and the reader is quickly drawn into the tale of her life as she grows up mostly on her own and lives in both England and France. she becomes a swordmaker for knights and at one point meets a young William Marshall. At times it seemed as though the book would topple into the "too much drama" realm but the author balances good and bad events well enough that one doesn't become exasperated. By the end, I thought it was a great book and there were interesting details that I wondered about the truth of which the author discusses in an excellent afterward. Good book. ( )

I'm not sure how to place this book. Though the storyline of a young girl going against society and becoming a master swordsmith sounds like young-adult, the intrigues along the way are downright adult romance-novel material.

Storyline moves along nicely throughout, dates and place-names given on the chapter help the reader along. Dialogs are natural and unforced, with emotional color. Societal and culinary history add the flavors required to give the reader a feeling for the period. Descriptions of clothing and daily life are light, just enough to get by but may leave the reader wishing for more detail. The blacksmithing details are quite interesting and don't bog-down the pace or become a how-to guide for a medieval smithy. Enjoyable on the whole, if you're not looking for a wholehearted history-novel.

The storyline did drive me nuts at times, the fact Thibault kept popping up and ruining Ellen's life no matter where she happens to be with his single-minded obsession over her. As with the only romance-novel I've ever intentionally read, I kept yelling at the characters "just tell him/her and everything will be fine!", but that would have shortened the story dramatically. The translation too seemed off, using more modern phrases and not drawing from any historical study of the language.

All in all an enjoyable book, not too deep but a fine first-step for a historical-fiction reader. I look forward to reading the rest of the series (once translated).


[bc:Der silberne Falke|6235578|Der silberne Falke|Katia Fox|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327603363s/6235578.jpg|6418281] [bc:Der goldene Thron|9000762|Der goldene Thron|Katia Fox|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327763923s/9000762.jpg|13878062] ( )