Leisure, $4.99, ISBN 0-8439-4945-7
Historical Romance, 2001
A True and Perfect Knight is a really nice title. The knight in question, Sir Haven de Sessions is far from true and perfect though, but I guess that’s the way it is with mediocre romance novels. When the title says that the story inside glitters like diamonds, expect to be squirted in the face by slimy goo the moment you open the book.
Sir Heavenly Sessions is very angry with Genvieve Drayford. He believes that she has led her husband (Heavenly Sessions’s best buddy since forever) into betraying King Edward. Plus, she’s French. So she is such a bitch, huh? In fact, everybody believes Genny to be a traitor, and she is almost stoned to death when Heavenly Sessions here rescues her to be brought back to King Edward’s court for a hasty trial.
And since this is a romance, King Edward’s way of punishing traitors is by marrying said traitors to members of his court. Genvieve, say hi to new hubby Heavenly Sessions. Heavenly Sessions is ordered to go back to Wales and keep his wife and her home, now his, in proper order. Of course, Heavenly is supposed to be Eddie’s most trusted knight, et cetera, but if you ask me, I wonder what Heavenly did in the past to annoy Eddie this way.
Naturally, Heavenly Sessions realizes that somehow, he has misunderstood his old dead childhood best friend, because his childhood best friend will be the demon spawn traitor from hell. Such selective amnesia will only lead him to realize what a lovely, martyred, compassionate nitwit Genny is, and they will (a) kill the real traitors, (b) teach Genny to love again forever and ever, and (c) bore me to death.
The plot is rife in lack of continuities and erratic character developments. Ms Charnley intends to set up the stage for a story of conscience versus desire, perhaps, but she loses the plot by making the heroine’s aura of spectacular innocence the catalyst and panacea of all problems with trust. See, if you’re pure, a martyr, and somehow the whole aural (at least, since we all know the physical is better) hymen of yours shine through like a beacon of righteousness, he will love you and trust you, damn everything else. I can go on about the plot illogicality, but it will be like flogging an already dead and decomposing horse. The premise is off, so the off plot details won’t matter anymore.
A True and Perfect Knight has all the ingredients of a rushed by-the-book romance novel. A little more thought to the plotting and characterization could have done wonders for it.
