This is the fourth Judith Tarr book that I've read, starting with The Dagger and the Cross, moving through The Hound and the Falcon, and ending with Rite of Conquest, at least until now. What I've found is that these novels, at least in the order in which I read them, moved from historical fiction with some magic/fantasy elements, to historical fiction with fantasy and romance woven in, to more romance with some erotica thrown in, to full blown erotica/romance with some historical fiction thrown in. Didn't really expect all those sex scenes, to be honest. Whew.

The premise of the book is that the Lower Kingdom of Egypt is preparing to declare war on the foreign kings that have been ruling in the Upper Kingdom for the last hundred years. We have two main characters, cousins, one a male that is living as an exile from his homeland in the Upper Kingdom but has found great favor at the court of the king of the Lower Kingdom, and one a female that is living as a slave to a fairly lenient foreign master in her family's old estates in the Upper Kingdom. Each one wants to see the foreign rulers cast out, and takes whatever possible steps towards this goal. There is a side adventure into Crete, when one of our heroes goes there to seal an alliance, but the bulk of the book follows the two protagonists as they grow up and head towards war. There are several priestesses in this book, and plenty of characters believe in magic, but no actual magic takes place, making this much less fantasy-esque than Tarr's other books that I've read. In fact, it's really not fantasy at all. It's a romance, set in a historical setting (which she claims was taken at least to some extent, from reality), with lots and lots of sex.

Which is not to say that this book, or those sex scenes, were bad. They were your standard falling-in-love-while-ravishing-the-one-you're-supposed-to-hate kind of scenes, but no so bad for all of that. I would just warn others who might have read some of Ms. Tarr's other books that The Shepherd King sits much farther into the romance camp than, say, The Hound and the Falcon (which I rather liked) did. All in all, it struck me as an okay book- neither particularly good nor particularly bad. The beginning was a little bit boring but the story picked up as it moved forward. The plot was pretty straightforward, since the real focus is on the romances between various characters. Maybe fans of romances will have more appreciation for this book. As for me- ehn. ( )