The Warrior's Princess

I love all of Barbara Erskine's books. This one was so enjoyable I tried to read slowly so I would be able to enjoy it for a longer time.

When Jess is attacked by an unknown assailant, her whole life changes forever... Looking to put her life back together after the attack, Jess moves to her sisters little secluded house in the Welsh Borders. But she does not get the rest she is hoping for. Late at night she is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child and soon, she is having vivid dreams that seem so real she feels as if she is there. What Jess doesn't know is that, two thousand years before, a great battle took place in the Welsh Borders. When the king of the Catuvellauni Tribe is taken prisoner by the invading Romans, his wife and their daughter, Princess Eigon, take cover in the very same cottage that Jess is living in now. Soon, with the dreams becoming increasingly real, Jess is drawn into the mystery of Princess Eigon and what happened to her. Inside the cottage Jess will find connections to the past that are real. But those same connections to the past threaten to shatter Jess' present completely if she is not careful... I have always loved Barbara Erskine. Her books are an incredible mix of history, romance and the paranormal. It's like she's filtered the best of three genres into her work and it always shines. Having fallen in love with her work after reading The Edge of Darkness, I have devoured every book she's written. She has a way of capturing the reader and drawing them in, pulling them into her story and not letting go until the end. The Warrior's Princess is no exception and is her best book yet. The story of Jess and Eigon is poignant, incredible and thrilling. Erskine has outdone herself with this thrilling story of dreams, history and salvation. The characters are so incredibly alive, the danger so incredibly real, that I couldn't stop reading and didn't want to put it down. Though the book clocks in at well over six hundred pages, it was over in no time at all. I have never read another author who makes history so exciting. What I love most about The Warrior's Princess is that Erskine makes time travel seem so real, so incredibly vivid. Erskine makes it seem as if time travel, as if slipping into a different time, is real and could happen to anyone. She makes the impossible seem possible and brings what could be a boring historical period to life by having the pages drip with blood and emotion. If you read one book this summer, make sure it's The Warrior's Princess. You won't be sorry.

Author Barbara Erskine must be listening to her fan base. Her last few novels, although set in different locales, followed the same tired formulaic plot line where a modern day heroine urged on by a spectacularly historic backdrop channels into a restless soul from the past and is pursued by dual male contemporaries with a mixture of lascivious and murderous intentions to yield a 500+ page yawn of a good versus evil supernatural saga. However, instead of the usual mindless pursuit where the reader can determine halfway through the novel its three snores and a beer can climax, "The Warrior's Princess" fascinates with a well-controlled weaving of the past and present storylines to create a compelling neatly crafted story about Eigon, the daughter of the defeated warrior king, Caratacus, of the Roman Britain's Catuvellauni tribe featured in her earlier novel "Daughters of Fire (Unabridged)". As a master storyteller, Erskine explores her rape at the hands of Roman soldiers and her subsequent life in the Rome of Emperior Claudius and Nero. The plot of "The Warrior's Princess" does not deviate too far from the characteristic Erskine storyline. Jess, a young teacher living in 21st century London awakes the morning after a party celebrating the end-of-school to find herself bruised, her clothing torn and disheveled, her mind wiped clean of whatever violence had transpired. When she realizes that she has been horrifically raped, yet cannot remember which of the men from the night before returned with her to her apartment, she decides that her life may be in jeopardy. Frightened with her only recourse escape to her sister's home in remote Wales, Jess's heightened emotional upheaval attracts the vibes of a lonely distraught child searching the Welsh hills for her mother and sister. The reader quickly discovers that the young girl is a manifestation from the Britain of Roman times, abandoned by her mother for her own safety on the day of the great battle between her tribe and the conquering Roman legion. To her sudden discomfort, Jess relives her own attack as she finds herself witnessing the rape of Eigon and her mother by Roman soldiers. Filled with pity for the outrage endured by the young girl, Jess desires only to discover what her outcome was in a historical sense. Spurred on by her own need for escape, Jess decides to journey to Rome as once Eigon and her captured family did to explore the sensations Eigon is sending her through the funnel of time. Like other Erskine works, the premise behind the story remains predictable. Admirers of Erskine know that inevitably she will employ her standard technique of introducing a woman who is psychically linked to a troubled soul from the past. As the major character has enemies, so does her doppelganger in the present. In fact, Erskine notably does well in fashioning a believable modern story filled with contemporary angst resulting from male/female relationship problems usually with city types

I found this new book by Barbara Erskine to be both a chilling and absorbing read, I couldn't put it down. She has the reader from the first page trying to anticipate who or what voices are and if they are real or not. Jess, her heroine, is a teacher who wakes up with no memory of the scratches on her thighs and her torn clothing. Was she a victim of date rape drug? Clearly she has been raped but why can't she remember the who or why. Fearing for her sanity thinking it may be a student she flees to her sister's cottage in the hills of Northern Wales. She has the place to herself to recover her memory because her sister has jutted off to friends in Rome. But when Jess is in the cottage but a short while, she begins to hear a child's voice and learns the area was once a great battlefield for one of the last great battles where the Briton tribes stood against the Romans. Jess is quickly drawn to the story of Eigon and she wants to know more, but when she has strange happenings with things and visitors to the cottage, she leaves to join her sister in Rome. Unfortunately, her obession grows worse when she learns Eigon too was taken to Rome with her family. Apparently there is some reason why this ancient woman's live is important to Jess. Those around her , her sister, friends and a former lover are growing more concerned by her obsession but all that changes when evil has followed her to Rome Clearly it isn't only the Ancient Welsh princess's life that is danger but Jess's own live as she races around Rome staying just one step ahead of the evil. In true Erskine fashion she has a story line in the past ( Ancient Rome and Wales) that effects those in the present. There are some surprises for those who read her last book DAUGHTERS OF FIRE. This new offering does have only one drawback and that the role of the hero of sorts plays only a minor role until about the last 150 pages or so, I would have wished to have developed more but after all this isn;t romance . Those who are fans of Erskine's style are going to love this story and those new readers who love history, mystery and a strange bit of paranormal all thrown together for a satisfying read are going to love this book as well. Surprisingly she expertly blends ancient Welsh Druidism, with the early stirrings of Christianity in Rome which could be turn off for some but I was surprised to find it added wonderfully to make the story come alive. I hope she develops that last bit of unfinished business with one of her spirit characters. Don't wait for the US edition of this book, get it now and find a cosy place to read but watch your back you never know where evil lurks.