A Knight's Vow

If you like Lynn Kurkland,s other books you will enjoy reading these short stories. They are well written and fun to read.

I originally bought this book because Deborah Simmons wrote one of the stories (The Bachelor Knight) but I found, much to my delight that I really liked a couple of the other stores MORE than I did hers. Not that it was a bad story, it was quite good actually, but my favorite of all of them was The Seige, by Glynnis Campbell. I enjoyed it so much that I MUST obtain her other books...My Champion, My Hero and My Warrior. I also liked the Minstrel and The Traveller. Neither were bad stories. In fact I am a sucker for time travel stories which The Traveller is. The only contention I have with it is that it seemed a bit to rushed. I actually wanted more. I also discovered that she mentions characters from one of her other books...A Dance through Time. It might be noted that this is William De Piagets story and Juliana is a friend of Elizabeth Smith who is the central character in A Dance Through Time. Which just means I now have to hunt down Kurlands other books because not only am I a sucker for time travel books but I also love sequels.

A Knight's Vow is a collection of four romantic stories, all based on the title's theme. Four authors - Lynn Kurland, Patricia Potter, Deborah Simmons and Glynnis Campbell - each weave a tale of love and excitement. I own many short story collections - some classic, some sci-fi, some fantasy. In each case, there are stories I love and stories I'm less fond of in the collection, but the book is well worth owning because of the superb ones. The same is true here. I want to say first that you might think it's easier to write a short story than to write a long story. The opposite is actually true. It is MUCH harder to create believable characters, get the reader engaged with them, put together an understandable plot, and resolve everything satisfactorily all in only a few words. So where an author might be excellent at a full length novel, they might have much more trouble writing a short story. The first story is The Traveller by Lynn Kurland. This is definitely a story that seems "squished in" in short story format. The heroine is an out of work medieval researcher in New York City. She gets a letter from a friend, goes to sit on a park bench and POOF she is in medieval England. The idea that she managed in one instant to find the exact portal and the whole setup would have shone in a longer version, but here it seems forced. Her incessant hiccupping is an interesting but frustrating touch. I appreciate that the author attempts an explanation for how she can understand what they're saying. However, I'm never a fan for people who fall madly in love after looking at each other for 16 hours, so again that's a place where they story was forced to fit the guidelines. Even the end where the couple come back to modern times and the knight is obsessed with the fridge turns him into more of a "cute anomaly" rather than an intelligent, well rounded mature adult. This is definitely a story where I think it would have done well as a full length novel, but the author seems less skilled at writing a story perfectly suited for the short story format. The second story is The Minstrel by Patricia Potter. This is a fairly typical story - knight pretends to be commoner, lady pretends to be commoner, and they fall in love with each other without the issues of greed and conniving they usually have to deal with. I do like the idea that people who are cynical about love can find their hearts opening up and able to trust. The problem is that the whole story *is* predictable. You even know the exact timeframe of how the romance will run out, thanks to a schedule set by the father. So then it's just a matter of waiting for the story to plod through. For several reasons I felt less than connected with both the hero and heroine. The third story is The Bachelor Knight by Deborah Simmons. Every collection has to have its worst story, and this is the one here. A knight begins life as a poor waif and is taken in by a local lord. He falls in love with the lord's daughter - and

A Knight's Vow consists of four stories with the same theme - knight's vowing to "honor and protect helpless women" ends up marrying the "respsonsibility" they had taken care of.Only the first and the last stories are worth a read. I have been a fan of all Lynn Kurland's time travel series and this story continues to interest me. A must read to add your collection of her time series.The last one, "the seige" is also a must read for a new author. It is entertaining and caught my attention throughout the story. I wished it were longer. The idea of "knowing a person's soul first before the body" is an interesting part. And thus I am taking my time to collect all three of Gylnnis Campbell's de ware trilogy.However the two stories in the middle -- "the minstrel" & "bachelor knight" were a bore. The minstrel was soo predictable that I could not finish the whole book. I felt like I would make up a better plot than Ms Potter. The concept of the "bachelor knight" was a good one. However, Ms. Simmons seems to fail at the task of developing a full entertaining and cohesive storyline along the concept. It is like watching the Movie "Scorpion King" after the two Mummy series that you have to laugh. Although all the ingredients are there, there is just something missing.a good book for bedtime or hospital run read.

I just finished reading this book and I thought it was good. I LOVE Lynn Kurland, so that's why I even got the book. The Bachelor Knight was sort of boring, it took me a while to read through that. My favorite one of course was The Traveller. All in all I would recommend this book to a friend.