Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Here Be Dragons
Book Review: Here Be Good Reads
Summary: 4 Stars
Sharon Kay Penman has done a very good job penning a good read in this historical fictional account of the life of King John I of England and the politics of the English/Welsh relationship in the twelfth century. Though the characters tend to lack any real emotional development, the events are assiduously researched and the author does a good job of keeping a well-oiled pace. One of the delights of this book is being mildly aghast at once-common practices, such as marrying twelve-year-old children, and the facile relationship with death. A great read for those looking for an informative, entertaining novel.Book Review: Here be dragons
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a fictional account of Llewelyn the Great and his wife Siwan (Joanna Plantagenet, the illegitimate daughter of King John). It begins with Llewelyn as a 10 year old boy, heartbroken because his mother has remarried with a Norman knight and that has forced them to leave Wales. The author spends time with the Plantagenet family's interfamilial fights, Eleanor of Aquitaine as mother and grandmother, Richard the Lion Hearted as brother, John as king, as well as Joanna's childhood, the political marriage of Joanna and Llewelyn. It was well-written and kept me interested until the end.Book Review: Historical fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
I always have an interest in well written historial fiction featuring my ancestors. This novel is set during the time of King John, who was one of my more villainous anceestors - when he had a dispute with one of my female ancestors, he had her walled up alive in the wall of her castle. If anything, the novel may sugarcoat the characters a little bit. The novel generally follows the history of the times, with emphasis on King John, his daughter Joan/Joanna, and the Welsh Prince Llewelyn. This was a time when common people had few rights, and were trampled underfoot by warring nobles. The perks of an invading army were loot and captured women, so it was a time of pillage, rape, burn and kill. Amazingly, people survived and we are descended from survivors. Children of the principal players are known to have survived, including the children of Prince Llewelyn who eventually had descendents who married into the British Royal family. Kings quite commonly killed nephews, and King John's nephew did disappear. Some people were obsessed with power.
My brother calls our family ancestry a spider web. It is what rednecks call a family tree that does not branch. The various families repeatedly intermarried, and kings, nobels, and other high placed individuals often had numerous children by various women besides their official wives. King Henry I had 20 children that he acknowledged - illegitimate children could not inherit the throne (and neither could women at that point in time), but the king could give them titles, perhaps making a son an earl. King John was also known to have numerous children. Like Joan, illegitimate daughters could be married off to form alliances.
William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, fought valiantly for King John, once (at age 51) leading an assault over a castle wall while wearing full armor. While wealthy, via his wife, he had no claim or aspirations for the throne. He was made Regent during the minority of John's son, King Henry III, and defended the realm against invaders.
Book Review: Historical fiction doesn't get any better!
Summary: 5 Stars
This start to the Welsh Trilogy had me reading into the wee hours of the night. Sharon Kay Penman not only is a gifted storyteller, but a stickler for research. She paints a perfect picture both of Ancient Wales and Norman England. The book is a tribute to the Welsh people and should be on the bookshelf of all historical fiction lovers. It is the true stories in history that make the best backdrop for adventure, love, betrayal, and war. This book not only tells the story of the events, but tells a beautiful story about the people. Rich character development and supreme writing make you so invested in them that you are sorry to turn that last page.Bravo.Book Review: Impressive
Summary: 4 Stars
I usually shy away from historical fiction starring real people, finding that such books are often dry--that, or widely derided for inaccuracy. This is one of those rare books that is neither, that is thoroughly researched but never reads like biography; the characters and their inner lives and relationships are fleshed out in a way that would make any novelist proud.
Here Be Dragons spans 51 years of Welsh and English history (from 1183 to 1234), focusing on the lives of three main characters: Llewelyn, the Prince of Gwynedd; King John of England; and Joanna, John's illegitimate daughter and Llewelyn's wife. The character development is excellent, with nuanced portraits of each. I found them all ultimately sympathetic, but there's a lot of gray area and controversial decisions, just what I like in fiction. The time span, though, is both good and bad. On the positive side, we get a broad view of the historical picture and see the characters grow and mature; the love story, instead of just showing the courting phase, covers a decades-long marriage, which is especially refreshing because the portrayal is neither excessively idealistic nor depressingly dreary. The downside is that timeskips tend to be jarring; so much happens offstage in both the personal and political realms that constant exposition (often thinly disguised as dialogue) is required to keep us up to speed. I often felt like I lost track of the characters due to their rapid aging; Llewelyn, for instance, pops in and out of the narrative for the first 20 years covered, remaining distant from the reader up until his marriage with Joanna. This novel might have worked better as an entire trilogy! Without question, I thought the best part was the 50% or so in the middle, which spanned only 10-15 years and slowed down enough to allow the reader to become truly involved.
But any book with this many 5-star reviews has obviously hit on something, and Here Be Dragons has a winning combination: excellent history, but wonderfully readable, turning the characters into people who are fully realized and sympathetic. There's some action, and a fair number of events and situations that are truly bizarre--all of these, of course, grounded in the historical record. Overall, it's good stuff, and I would certainly recommend to historical fiction fans and those interested in sampling the genre.