Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory - A Historical Romance

This review contains NO spoilers


A little "how I came to buy this book" background:

A few months ago I was browsing through a bookstore one day, looking for something to scratch my medieval romance itch and I happened upon Knight of Desire by Margaret Mallory. I read the blurb on the back and it sounded good to me, but it was the hunky man on the cover that sold me. Yes, I am ashamed (but only a little bit) to say that I am one of those women who do in fact allow the cover design to sway my pocketbook. I mean, let’s be honest ladies. If you’re reading a book and the story is horrible but the cover is beautiful and sexy and gives you something to drool over, it doesn’t feel like a total waste of money. Am I right? I can see you all nodding your heads in agreement. But I digress…So I made my purchase, came home and put the book right up there on my bookshelf and forgot about it.

Then just a few weeks ago, I signed up for a Goodreads reading challenge that required the title of the novel to contain a word, any word, that had to do with royalty, so I went right to my bookshelf and started pulling out books that would qualify and what did my wondering eyes behold? Yep, you guessed it! Knight of Desire. I grabbed it off the shelf, added it to my book challenge list and am now sitting here, laptop at hand, hoping that I can find the words to describe this book in a way that will do it justice.

Now that that's out of the way -

My Review:

I had no idea while reading this book that it was Margaret Mallory’s debut novel. That says a lot about the writing, the storyline and the characters. This type of storyline was fairly new to me and instantly caught my interest, holding it from the first page to the last. Things start moving very quickly in the story which was nice. Often times a novel with a complex plot ends up reading like a history book with dates and place names tossed at you. This is not the case with Mallory’s writing. She brings the story to life, artfully weaving a tale that sweeps you away to another time. You can imagine yourself being there through it all – the battles, the intrigue and the passion.

All of the relationships in Knight of Desire were beautifully written which is why I came to care about the characters, not as characters, but as people. I enjoyed the deep, longtime friendship between Catherine and Prince Harry, the mother/child bond of Catherine and Jamie and then the love/hate marriage between Catherine and William. Their emotions were honest in that they felt the kinds of things that real people in their situations would feel; hurt, betrayal, mistrust, doubt, fear – but there is also hope, faith, desire, passion and most importantly, love.

I regret having waited so long to take this one off the shelf! I’m definitely looking forward to reading Knight of Pleasure and Knight of Passion, as well as her upcoming Highlander series.