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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780425180334
ISBN number: 0425180336
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: October 01, 2000
Publishing house: Berkley
Sale Popularity Level: 11943
Studio: Berkley
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A courageous border lord who has lost everything he has ever cared about finds new meaning in his life when he encounters a young woman willing to sacrifice it all to find love. Original.'
Amazon.com Review:
This medieval historical romance doesn't offer any of the paranormal elements found in Lynn Kurland's very first two books, Stardust of Yesterday, and Dance Through Time, yet Kurland's fans will not be disappointed by this sensitive and moving romance. Gillian of Warewick knows no other treatment than the terrible physical and mental abuse issued by her father. When he arranges a match for Gillian with Christopher of Blackmour, she is fearful: Blackmour is rumored to be an evil sorcerer. When Gillian meets him, he proves to be far more of a man than her father is, yet he is unwilling to be a lover to Gillian. She finds that Blackmour has as many psychological scars to heal as she has physical scars.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Gillian is not a strong heroine... She's been brutalized by her father and is a total innocent... ignorant of how others live or about the world in general. She thinks everyone is beaten and believes the gossip of servants. So when her father is about to marry her off to the Devil of Blackmour, she's certain her prospective groom has horns and practices grey magic and will treat her worse than her father.
This does not not bode well for a romance. Fortunately, Gillian is innocent, but not a bad person or stupid. Her instincts are good, even if she rightly doesn't easily trust in herself or anything. Her desire to run away without knowing anything about the world can be annoying... As can her gullibility. But thankfully she eventually senses that Blackmour is not the Devil and that she may find herself in a much better place with him.
Blackmour's reputation is dark for a reason. He is hiding a secret--a debilitating injury-- that can spell the end for him as a powerful lord. And he is also hiding a heart trammeled by his dead very first wife...
Blackmour's situation is fascinating... and there is no easy out for him. But love does conquer all, and that makes for a satisfying romance.
Rated by buyers 
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A friend of mine lent me this book and I have to say I did not want to put it down. This book had me laughing and crying at the same time. It was wonderfully written to the point where you are there with the characters of the book.
Rated by buyers 
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I can't believe how great the reviews are on this book. I checked it out & read it & found it to be really stupid. The girl is a freaking idiot--she should be in a nunnery (where she might fit in way better than with her lusty & sexy husband). The father of the girl is such an extreme caricature that he's pretty much unbelievable. The hero is pretty good--overcoming his blindness as much as he can (sometimes to the extent that it's completely unbelievable), but his interest in Gemma seems quite forced. I've read much better.
Rated by buyers -
This is all I ask is a very very nice romance, that I loved reading for the very first 2/3 of it. In fact, if I was to rate it objectively I might rate it with 5 stars, but since all this rating/reviewing system is about how I feel about it, I can't give it more than 4 stars, or 3 and 1/2 to be exact.
The story, as it has been described already here is that of Gillian's of Warewick, shy and timid and physically abused by her father marrying the evil, hard-hearted warlock Christopher of Blackmoor. As it is obvious, Chris turns out to be no evil warlock, but a blind and recluse, once proud, warrior. Gillian, under his tender treatment of her's overcomes her shyness and falls in love with him and he with her. But before they live happily ever after, they have to fight her evil father who wants to hurt Chris.
The story is simple and very forward, but also sweet and tender and I really enjoyed reading how their trust and love developed day by day (although Chris could have resisted a little longer before he fell for Gill's charm).
But, I had two major issues with the book and they are exactly the same I had with Stardusts of Yesterday; it has nothing to do with the story or the predictability of it which I don't mind a bit. It has everything to do with the overly flowery language that Kurland uses in those two books (didn't find the same in The very Thought of you nor in A Dance through time which I both love) and my personal preference of having the heroes openly profess their love to each other at the very end of the book. For me, when the heroes say their respective "I love you"s to each other, this is where the story ends. I might have the patience of reading another 5 or 10 pages of epilogue on how they lived happily ever after or about 30-40 pages of hunting down the villain before they can live happily. But to read for over 120 pages, in between of which only 3 pages of fight/action exist, of character development (Gillian overcoming her shyness even more and Chris becoming even more confident that he still is a warrior) is something I am extremely BORED to do. I found myself skipping most of those pages, until I reached the fight scene which is 10 pages before the end.
Taking in mind the PG rating of this book and the way I was never tired of reading enough I love you's from the hero to the heroine when I was in my teens, I can only deduce that this novel is targeted mainly to the younger audience. More cynical readers will have little patience with so sugary a writing style. Also, those as myself, who want their male hero dark and brooding will firstly love Chris, but soon become disappointed as in a few pages after the middle of the book he fiercely claims "Don't lean out the window. You're liable to fall and then where would I be?" only to answer by himself "Bereft" a couple of lines later. Pleeeeeaaaase.... What more is there to read after that???
Rated by buyers 
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21 year old woman with the mental/emotional maturity of a ten year old marries blinded/heart-hurt ex-warrior and they heal each other.
The writing is excellent. The story kept my attention and I read it to the very end. But it bugged me.
I never got past how much I disliked the way the hero and heroine were set up. They had the feel to me of characters in a book much older (I'm thinking 1970's) where women were feeble and helpless and needed a man to make decisions for them. Gillian had no common sense. She acts like an idiot. I wanted to beat her over the head with the paperback and tell her to start thinking.
The other thing that really bothered me was Gillian's development as someone who was abused. It didn't feel real. She didn't behave in the way that I'd expect. She learned fear, but other than that she was pretty much perfect in every way. Where is her rebellion? Where is her tendency to become an abuser herself? In real life abused children have long term issues that I just didn't see in Gillian.
I would have liked this book if Gillian had been more real to life and her relationship with Christopher had brought out more realistic issues.
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