A Silver Mirror is more historical fiction than historical romance – and if I was more in the mood for that sort of thing, I might have persevered, but as it is, the book ended up boring me and hitting some of my pet peeves instead, so I ended up putting it down. I got to page 350, with a hundred pages to go, so I feel like I gave it a good enough chance to interest me, but it just kept on with more of the same, and wasn’t going anywhere, either in plot or romance. Boy did this book redefine the concept of repetitive for me.

A Silver Mirror concerns itself with the civil strife besetting England at the time – King Henry is a weak, bad king. His barons have rebelled and stolen power from him. The heroine’s father numbers among those rebels, and so she understandably has sympathies with that side. But her uncle is the king’s man, and she’s concerned for him and his wife, so she’s divided in her loyalties, which are divided even further when she ends up marrying a royalist. As is the nature of civil war, her conflict is one that carries through to the rest of the nation. The two sides, rebel and royalist, are trying to negotiate peace with the help of King Louis of France, who staunchly maintains his neutrality. But the course to reconciliation is a slippery, rocky, difficult slope, each side opposed yet conscious of and struggling with the double edged nature of a conflict where everyone is wronged and doing wrong. It’s a lose/lose situation all around. The author sets up this political situation with nuance and clarity – it’s complex and detailed, with a lot of different sides and different kings, queens, and princes putting their two cents in. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Somehow, Gellis made it all very uninteresting.

Mostly, I think, because the two main characters fell very flat for me. Which is a shame, because I felt like they had a lot of promise. Lady Barbara, also, weirdly known as “Barby,” is a rather atypical aristocratic lady – rather outspoken/bold, but not annoying and silly about it. She’s intelligent and crafty and knows her way around not one but two royal courts, those of the French and the English monarchs in both of whose houses she’s served in the past. She’s unconventional and strong, and very smart, as she negotiates the various pitfalls of court intrigue and potential political traps. Alphonse is a French knight and courtier who is also very much at home playing at the manipulations and careful plotting of court intrigues. He’s a charmer and a rake type. Unfortunately, I never connected with either of them, and they were both kind of superficially drawn.

As for the relationship between the two, they met seven years prior, and that was when they fell in love. So their romance all happens off stage, as it were. They met in France, were separated because of some misunderstanding or other, she goes back to England, but, when she returns to France and meets up with him again, as soon as he sees her, he realizes he loves her and wants to marry her. He proposes, she accepts, and that’s about it. The main conflict for their marriage is her concern for his rake reputation. She can’t trust him to stay faithful and so decides that if she lets him know how much she loves him, he will lose interest in her. Solution: she will hide her passion and feelings for him. This is a stupid enough plan in and of itself, and really, really annoys me. But what’s even worse is that, when she’s not playing hot and cold with her husband, nothing is happening. At all! The two of them spend the whole time traveling around England, trying to negotiate their way between the conflicting royalist and rebel parties. There’s a brief detour to outsmart a bad guy intent on having his wicked way with Barbara, but that’s about it. Just a lot of traveling around and meeting up with different people, with Barby and Alphonse watching their words, being politic and crafty, trying to interpret what other people are saying, and fencing verbally with various kings and courtiers in the volatile atmosphere of a country torn apart by civil war.

Every now and then the author seems to remember that there is supposed to be a romance going on, so Barby gets all hot and bothered with Alphonse, then shoves him away and confuses him. These episodes are brief and sporadic, and there’s never any real interaction between the two of them, no flashbacks to give me some idea of the nature of the supposed love that had developed between them in the past (nothing beyond some vague references to a silver mirror he gave her back then and that she’s held on to, but, of course, hides from him.) Nor is there any development of their relationship in the present. All their conversations together are more like strategy conferences as they try to make sure they aren’t held hostage by whichever person they happen to have met up with at the time. Not being held hostage is a big concern of theirs. It’s nice that Alphonse values her opinion, and they kind of work together as a team to outsmart others and look after their joint interests. But it gets really old. It’s all about politics, which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, and would have been interesting, but the way that it’s represented, I feel like I’m reading the same conversation over and over again – the two of them watching their words, conferring with each other about what truths, half truths, or untruths to say to whom, what kind of negotiations to propose. And again, no romance, and hardly any character development. Oh, and when it comes to marital relations of a more intimate sort, every time there was a fade out. That annoyed me most of all – probably disproportionately, and it was really more incidental that anything else. But I thought I would mention it. These complaints make me seem really shallow and depraved, I know. But there it is. For me, A Silver Mirror had not enough spice, and too much politics. Couldn’t finish it. ( )

Barbara is the "natural" daughter of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk and the story is set during the latter years of Henry III's reign during the conflict between Henry and his barons, most specifically Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Barbara's father Roger sides with Leicester while his brother sides with the royalists. Leicester's younger son Guy aims to make Barbara his mistress against her will and to avoid exacerbating the political situation she sails for France.

Married and widowed at a very young age (although the marriage was never consummated), Barbara has carried a torch for knight Alphonse d'Aix and still carries the silver mirror he won in a tourney and gave to a very young Barbara. When the two meet again, they are instantly attracted to each other and decide to wed -- although neither are willing to admit their true feelings for each other. The rest of the story evolves around the growing conflict between Henry and his son Edward and Leicester and the rebellious barons as Barbara and Alphonse return to England and are constantly involved in the thick of all the intrigue and treachery as the two warring factions battle for supremacy, until that final and fateful battle at Evesham.

Gellis does a good job (as usual) setting up the back story and history of the period and although this is billed as a romance there's quite a bit more to it than that - if you're looking for a bodice ripper I suggest you look elsewhere - you'll probably be bored to tears with all the history. Barbara and Alphonse were really rather adorable with their fears of revealing their true feelings to each other and the crossed purposes on the path to true love - Barbara always thinking Alphonse is off chasing other women while Alphonse discovers the silver mirror Barbara treasures above all else and thinks she is hiding a secret lover. Although a bit slow at times as the history of this period is a bit complex, I did enjoy it and found it just right for a snow bound winter's afternoon. ( )