Desire Lines

"Yes, it is. I think part of the appeal is you don’t see that time period explored very much, or at least I don’t. Most of the time you have Regency or Victorian romances. This is going way back, and it’s set during the Welsh rebellions against the Norman rulers. It’s part of a series, but it’s one that you can listen to on its own. You’ll get more out of it if you have listened to the previous ones, but it’s okay to start with this one. I love that it’s set in the medieval era but it’s also familiar in that it’s a road trip story. They spend most of the audiobook traveling around Wales, and you get a sense of where they’re going and what the countryside is like. That can be so nice, especially in times like now where you can’t travel and we’re all stuck at home. It’s fun to be on the road with them. Nicholas Boulton, the narrator, is a romance reader favourite. He’s very good in this series and is especially good at doing the Welsh accents and making all these very distinctive characters. We actually have a new interview with him up on our podcast, Behind the Mic ! The story is about a man Gryff, a Welshman in hiding who is captured by violent thieves. He’s being made to travel around with them to take care of the falcons that he’s been taking care of for years. He’s saved by a woman, Nan, who swoops in and kills all of the people who have been keeping him captive, pretty much on her own. She’s very skilled with knives. She doesn’t speak very much at all. He winds up traveling around with her, so it’s the two of them. He’s very secretive about who he is because he’s worried about being caught and she’s very secretive for her own reasons. The two of the work so well as a pair, it’s fun getting to travel around with them. But there are so many really rich historical details in this too. You can tell that the author has done a lot of research into falconry, about where they all are. I also really appreciated that there are Black characters and Jewish characters and context within the story for what that would mean at the time. Those are people who were actually there, and that’s not often shown in historical romances. So I think she did a great job with that, too. Yes, I have. In this series, at least. I read the first one in print and then I listened to the second two. It’s fun reading about a time that we’re not often seeing represented in historical romances. She does it really well."