I reviewed this book for Romance Reader At Heart website.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Edythe, our heroine, was chosen by Queen Eleanor to follow her children, Richard and his sister Johanna, on the Crusade to Jerusalem. As a healer, she saves Richard's life when he comes down with a fever. From that point on, the whispers start that she's a witch. Rouquin is Richard's bastard cousin and the object of Edythe's affections.

Never having read this author before, I went in blindly into the story, prose, and voice, hoping for the best. I can assure you that Ms. Holland has given her best in telling this tale of faith, war, and love. For her to paint such a vivid picture in our minds of a time so far in our past, she had to have done an enormous amount of research; yet the prose she uses to tell the story, captivates the reader from the start.

For some reason, the recurring thought I had reading this story was that if this novel ever became a movie, it just might be even better than `The Braveheart'. It certainly had all the elements of it, down to the gory battle details. The author didn't shy away from painting a very realistic picture of the times she was writing about.

Every character we meet is multi-layered and complex. Everything I thought I knew about the Crusades went out the window. Richard the Lionhearted was bigger than life, yet only a man.

Like I said, if you liked `The Braveheart' and `The Lion in Winter', you will love this novel. It is full of political intrigue and epic battles vividly and painstakingly portrayed by an author that knows her craft.

Melanie ( )

A satisfying if somewhat light read, The King's Witch is set in the Holy Land of the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart, King of England, his sister Queen Johanna of Sicily, his new bride Berengaria of Navarre, and the variety of other royal, semi-royal and noble crusaders are secondary characters here. Taking center stage are Edythe, fostered by Queen Eleanor despite her common birth, and the knight Rouquin, a bastard-born cousin of Richard and Johanna. Edythe earns the sobriquet of "king's witch" by nursing Richard through a bout of a recurrent fever. She's attracted to Rouquin but knows that despite his base-born state, he's far above her in status. And then there's the secret she hides...

Cecelia Holland does a nice job of portraying the tangled webs of politics and betrayal that made up the Crusade. I was a little disappointed at the end, as I felt the two main characters got through a major crisis just a little too easily. ( )

http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/2011/06/kings-witch-by-cecelia-holland.html ( )