• Author
  • Book
  • Story behind the book
  • Media Links
  • Reviews
Lisa Lickel

Lisa Lickel

About

I live in a 150-year-old Great Lakes ship captain's house with my husband and my collections of books and dragons.

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

The Sons of Godwine: Part Two of The Last Great Saxon Earls

0.0
0 ratings

Description

<p>Emerging from the long shadow cast by his formidable father, Harold Godwineson showed himself to be a worthy successor to the Earldom of Wessex. In the following twelve years, he became the King's most trusted advisor, practically taking the reins of government into his own hands. And on Edward the Confessor's death, Harold Godwineson mounted the throne—the first king of England not of royal blood. Yet Harold was only a man, and his rise in fortune was not blameless. Like any person aspiring to power, he made choices he wasn't particularly proud of. Unfortunately, those closest to him sometimes paid the price of his fame.<br /><br />This is a story of Godwine's family as told from the viewpoint of Harold and his younger brothers. Queen Editha, known for her Vita Ædwardi Regis, originally commissioned a work to memorialize the deeds of her family, but after the Conquest historians tell us she abandoned this project and concentrated on her husband, the less dangerous subject. In THE SONS OF GODWINE and FATAL RIVALRY, I am telling the story as it might have survived had she collected and passed on the memoirs of her tragic brothers.<br /><br />This book is part two of The Last Great Saxon Earls series. Book one, GODWINE KINGMAKER, depicted the rise and fall of the first Earl of Wessex who came to power under Canute and rose to preeminence at the beginning of Edward the Confessor's reign. Unfortunately, Godwine's misguided efforts to champion his eldest son Swegn recoiled on the whole family, contributing to their outlawry and Queen Editha's disgrace. Their exile only lasted one year and they returned victorious to London, though it was obvious that Harold's career was just beginning as his father's journey was coming to an end.<br /><br />Harold's siblings were all overshadowed by their famous brother; in their memoirs we see remarks tinged sometimes with admiration, sometimes with skepticism, and in Tostig's case, with jealousy. We see a Harold who is ambitious, self-assured, sometimes egocentric, imperfect, yet heroic. His own story is all about Harold, but his brothers see things a little differently. Throughout, their observations are purely subjective, and witnessing events through their eyes gives us an insider’s perspective.<br /><br />Harold was his mother's favorite, confident enough to rise above petty sibling rivalry but Tostig, next in line, was not so lucky. Harold would have been surprised by Tostig's vindictiveness, if he had ever given his brother a second thought. And that was the problem. Tostig's love/hate relationship with Harold would eventually destroy everything they worked for, leaving the country open to foreign conquest. This subplot comes to a crisis in book three of the series, FATAL RIVALRY.</p>

Story Behind The Book

How does society view older woman/younger man relationships? I wanted to explore the concept of family, the changing concepts of what consititutes a family, combined with dealing with a missing person case. Is telling the truth always the best course of action?

Media Links

Reviews

<span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#000000;font-size:10pt;">From Amazon.com reviewer and reader:<br />When a non-romance reader (that's me) calls a romance novel extraordinary, you know the novel must be worth taking a look at. Yes, MEANDER SCAR is that kind of book -- worth taking a look at and then definitely worth reading. Sure, MEANDER SCAR is a romance, but it's not an everyday, formulaic, quick-read one. While the romance plot element is strong, very strong, so too are the elements of theme, suspense, characterization, and writing style. For example, the title is just one of many beautiful stylistic uses of metaphor in the novel (curious? read the novel). And characterization -- wow, reading about a younger man (Mark) who's loved an older woman (Ann) since he was a teenager, and then watching him become her suitor years later is for sure not your typical love story (curious? read the novel). Then there's the suspense of what's happened to Ann's probably deceased husband and the implications for Ann and Mark's romance (curious? read the novel). One theme in the novel I really liked was Mark's strong faith in God, and Ann's not so strong faith -- both were realistically portrayed, and both were realistically threatened (curious? read the novel). Once you've read MEANDER SCAR, you'll want to read author Lisa Lickel's other fascinating novels and recommend them -- just like I am with this review. Plus you'll also join me in hoping Lisa plans some sequels to her characters who've become our good friends.  </span>