The King's Daughter

by Penny Ingham

King Alfred The Great of Wessex lies dying, and his beautiful headstrong daughter, Elflaede, swears to continue her father's quest to drive the Vikings out of England. But, alongside bloodshed and battle, Elflaede must endure the jealousy of her brother Edward, the cruelty and callousness of her husband Ethelred, King of Mercia, and the surprising and forbidden love for her greatest enemy.

In an age of superstition and fear, when bloody battles laid the foundations of the English nation, The King’s Daughter is a powerful story of love and war, jealousy and betrayal - and the bitter choices of divided loyalties. (This book was previously published as Lady of the Mercians)

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, British Literature

Paperback

First published October 31, 2004

About the author

I've loved history from an early age. Family holidays were often spent marching up Iron Age hillforts listening to my father regale us with tales of the Roman attack and the valiant defence by the locals. Consequently, I have a degree in Classics and a passion for archaeology - often to be found at the bottom of a muddy trench with a trowel in my hand. I've dug all over the UK, including Fishbourne Roman palace and Silchester Roman town. I've had a variety of jobs over the years, from selling ice creams at York Theatre Royal in my teens to working for the BBC and writing for newspapers. Now, I live in Hampshire with my family and write full time. My latest novel, Twelve Nights, was published in 2022.

Reviews

[Mervyn Eastman]

A trope of romantic fiction?

The thread that holds this historical fiction together is the relationship between Aethelflaed and Guthrum (King of East Anglia) over many years. My recent discovery of The Lady of Marcia and researching her, allows me to regard this book for what it is. On that basis it was readable as a work of fiction & in broad strokes it followed this particular Anglo Saxon period. It is after all a trope of romantic fiction.

Or is it?

[Elisa]

I bought this book a few years ago, excited to read it. I forgot to update my Goodreads when I shipped it off to the charity shop, so I'm putting in my review now. Unfortunately, the writing was so poor it was impossible for me to look past it at the story. Wish it wasn't so, as the author is a lovely lady, and the subject was of great interest to me.

[Liz]

I was so looking forward to reading a novel about Tamworth's Saxon heroine but i just couldn't engage with this. It felt like a self published read, a bit of a vanity project and rather amateurish. Gave up after a few chapters as I was not enjoying it.

[Robin]

I'll admit it, I judge books by their covers. So I was hesitant to try this one because frankly, to me, the cover looked unprofessional and cartoonish.

But I also really wanted to read something on the main character Athelflaed (or Elflaede) and on Kindle, it came down to only two options and I felt this one had a better sample.

There were several scenes which I thought were unrealistic. For example, when Elflaede gave an order to her captor's men and they eventually obeyed, I just found that unbelievable. She has no authority over them, princess or not - she's the daughter of their enemy. Also, when Alfred takes back Edington by military force and finds Elflaede asleep inside. Really? She slept through a battle taking place just outside her door?

I also found it unrealistic that Old English and Old Norse were so similar that there was no language barrier between Elflaede and the Vikings. Maybe some words here and there were similar enough that you could work out the gist of what someone was saying. But to have full conversations where they fully understood each other without any complication... it just seemed unrealistically convenient for the author.

The other thing that bothered me was that I felt it basically wound up just being a love story and that's not what I was interested in. I knew there was a love story involved from the book's blurb but I didn't realize it would be the main theme of the book since it wasn't categorized as such on either Amazon or GR. It felt like it was less about history, more about the love story. I wanted to read about a warrior woman and what I found was an unrealistic love story with very one dimensional characters.

I really wanted to like it and prove my prejudice of book covers wrong but unfortunately, it was disappointing.

[Michael Saiger]

A different view point of the dark ages during Alfred the Great. I imagined Bernard Cornwell's world of Uhtred alongside this view point. Finished a while ago, will need to revisit to write a more thorough review.

[Tanzanite]

2.5 stars. http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/201...