Jayne Castel

I’ve gotta say I was fairly impressed with this work. While most self-published works seem to get some things right while lacking in others, this one impresses in all areas but one. This is a great look at a historical era often ignored in fiction.

Dark Ages Britain doesn’t get much love when it comes to historical fiction, especially the century this one is in, the 600s. We’re talking pre-Viking, pre-Alfred the Great, pre-anything the average person nowadays is aware of. For a show more self-published author to tackle this seems all the more impressive knowing this. And she does it fantastically well!!

Castel goes the extra length to pull real names from the fogginess of poorly recorded history and fleshes these people with real personalities. Most of the characters and settings that people this work are real individuals and places too, even down to the babes-in-arms and where they were baptized. Towns, protective works, landscape features, and counties are all vibrant settings that could be located on a map today. Obscure, barely legible names on parchment splash their motives, plans, love, and revenge across the page with panache.

All the characters are well-fleshed out, even the antagonistic ones that drive me up a wall. However, I have to give a special shout-out to our lead, Saewara.

She’s a woman with guts, especially given the timeframe she lives in and the special hardships women faced in it. She tries to shape her own life only to fail. She pays the price for her independence striving and goes to a truly dark place emotionally. Yet, she doesn’t let that completely overtake her life; she takes stock of her situation and creates other opportunities and connections to for a new life. As a result, she is able to find a new purpose in life and a beautifully passionate love match that she never saw coming. Where she ultimately ends up in the end is jaw dropping. Badass doesn’t even begin to cover it! The phrase “You go, girl!” echoed through my head more than once.

My only hitch with this book is a specific scenario that happened once Saewara got to her new home. Of course, being who she was and in the locale she found herself, she was bound to get some flack. Yet, it developed into a scenario one would find more in a modern high school than Dark Ages Britain. The exchanges and personalities involved came off as more juvenile teenager exchanges than between female romantic rivals. Saewara faced everything with her calm, strong exterior, but every time she was engaged with these people, I cringed.

Despite that one ding, this book is a solid historical fiction and romance. With strong characters (You go, Saewara girl!! LOL) and fantastic research, this author has proven her skills and chops along with the best of the field. I look forward to diving into more of her works!! show less

I was enjoying this up until the end. The 3rd act breakup made total sense. At first it bothered me that Justin never thought to free her until he wanted her to choose to marry him (and stupidly thought she would stay), so I'm glad Fenella left and Aedan talked some sense into him. I just don't understand why the author wrote that she went straight back to her terrible family and ex-lover just to show us how much better she could have it with Justin. Her moment of realization of her love was show more just abrupt and dumb, and I didn't resonate with it. I'd have preferred to read Justin make the bigger sacrifice and leave his role with Rome. show less

Dawn of Wolves (Kingdom of Mercia #3) by Jayne Castel is a kindle scout book. I haven't read the first two books and I didn't get lost. I am not one for romance but yeah, look at this cover! Wow, I am old but I still have some hormones! Anyway, this was a lot better than I thought a romance novel was going to be. It was a historical one, maybe that made it better. A good plot, developed characters, and not centered around sex like a lot of "romance' novels I have read. This actually has a show more story! Good book, I can't believe I am saying this about a romance novel, but yes, a very good book! show less

If you have read Kathryn Le Veque books because you want to read some Medieval books but found them "too much" (too many characters, series tie-ins, too historical) this might be a good alternative. It is hard to find Early Medieval period books and this one doesn't deal with Vikings, so I was excited to download this one as a Kindle Freebie.
The vernacular mostly reads as more modern, with historical appropriate terms and titles, which makes it more "readable". The author incorporates real show more historical figures to give it more feel which I liked.
The book is a bit top heavy though with good story and character building, the ending is rushed with characters acting in ways that feel forced for angst because of previous set-ups. I really enjoyed the first half but character make-ups kind of took a dive in the second half and left them feeling only 70% complete instead of fully fleshed out.
The women definitely don't have it easy in this one, one sexy-time scene between hero and heroine (other sex scenes), and not a fully completed romance.
Started off promising but kind of fell apart in ending second half. Definitely a win for a Kindle freebie and fun to visit a different time period. show less