Not My Thing: The Deed

I like historical fiction, especially of the medieval period. I also like romance novels. So it makes good sense that I would like historical romance taking place in the Middle Ages. Well. Hopefully there are better iterations out there, but The Deed by Lyndsay Sands did not rock my boat.

I get that when being authentic you must remember that the majority of marriages were arranged and not love matches. But that also doesn't mean that love matches didn't exist at all, or that we should suddenly find male chauvinism enchanting because of the time period. And that's what we got here. Marriage before love for the sake of historical circumstances outside anyone's control. You could start that as the premise to a love story, but there's never a real connection made between the couple, never a meeting of the minds or even a hint of mutual respect. The man's an oaf, to the point where even the other characters think his ideas about relations between the sexes are out of step. None of that is endearing.

If anyone knows of a better historical romance where we don't glamorize sexism, please - let me know.

K. Rating: 1/5