Lionheart

August 15, 2011
In this gritty, unsentimental, and richly detailed epic, Penman (The Sunne in Splendour) tackles the legendary King Richard the Lionheart (son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine), and nearly succeeds in making him human. As Richard leads the Crusades in Outremer (the land beyond the sea), Penman depicts many story lines: the friction between the English and French allies; the complex political tension between warring factions within Jerusalem; the mutual admiration between Richard and Saladin (a Sunni Muslim who became leader of the Saracen forces and sultan of Egypt); and Richard’s neglect of his young bride, Berengaria. The story follows Richard as he journeys from England to Sicily to free his sister, to Cyprus and Outremer, and finally to his departure from the Holy Land to reclaim his own lands from his treacherous brother John. Though hinting about events that don’t take place in the book may feel frustrating, and though Penman never allows readers to meet the elusive Saladin, she ably captures the political intricacies of the time. Readers will eagerly await the next installment, which will focus on Richard’s capture and ransom on his way home.

September 15, 2011

A thick medieval oater in which Richard Coeur de Lion meets Al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din, heads roll and the world shakes and shivers.

A little exposition in describing a book full of it: As fans of The Lion in Winter will remember, Henry II, King of England and Duke of Normandy, married the phenomenally smart Eleanor of Aquitaine and had five sons, three of whom rose up against him in rebellion. One of his heirs was Richard, who was no stranger to either intrigue or war. As Penman (Time and Chance, 2002, etc.) picks up her saga of the Angevins and Plantagenets in the present volume, Richard has dispatched with a pesky sibling and is now off in the Near East, embarking on the great task of freeing the Holy Land from the Muslims. Such big jobs need lots of support staff, and Penman fills her pages with characters, some colorful and some not, who do little bits of work to move the story along—but, sometimes, to make a long and complicated tale even more diffuse than it might have been. Mostly, though, Penman centers on the usual stuff of what, in the end, is an elevated gothic romance ("I think he had a nunnery in mind. He promised, though, to look after me, to make sure that I was always safe..." "Her veil slipped, as if by chance, and his pulse quickened, for she had skin as golden as her eyes and a full, ripe mouth made for a man's kisses")—though, thankfully, there's plenty of crowd-pleasing hacking of swords and twanging of catapults, too. Indeed, if the great flaw of the book is talkiness and, yes, a surfeit of exposition ("Henri had no liking for Baldwin, who'd been one of the two knights who'd broken formation at Arsuf, forcing Richard to commit to a premature charge"), the descriptions of action are uniformly well handled. 

In the hands of Robert Graves or Mary Renault, the material might have yielded a classic. As it is, a sturdy historical fiction.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011

Richard, one of four surviving sons of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine, inherits the throne and heads to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. Celebrated historical fiction novelist Penman, who recently wrapped up a trilogy on Richard's parents, should supply exhaustive authentic detail. For all Anglophile fiction readers.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2011
The prolific Penman continues to chronicle the exploits of the wildly dysfunctional Plantagenet clan. Turning her attention to Richard Coeur de Lion, the legendary son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, she paints a robust portrait of the often misunderstood Lionheart. While distancing her Richard from the improbably pious crusader-king of the Robin Hood fable, she also departs from more critical scholarly interpretations by positively reflecting his imprint on history and his influence upon his own time. Interestingly, Richard shares the fictional spotlight with his fiercest and most respected rival, Saladin, sultan of Egypt and military leader of the Saracens. Their complex relationship forms the core of the novel as they match wits and might during the Third Crusade. Penman displays her usual grasp of sweeping historical events, as well as an uncanny ability to get inside the hearts and minds of her real-life characters. Her reputation for character-driven, solidly detailed historicals is richly deserved. High Demand Backstory: The popularity of her superbly rendered Angevin trilogy (When Christ and His Saints Slept, 1995; Time and Chance, 2002; and The Devil's Brood, 2008) guarantees a ready-made audience for this fictional biography of the always intriguing Richard the Lionheart.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)