Hengist Journey #9
My favourite Cher song couldn’t be more perfect for the fifth Hengist installment. Again, being last in the series, it had a bit of a job to do, bringing together a number of the characters featured in the previous books. But it’s a story of two halves, beginning with “
Geraint,” the son of the powerful Renegate leader Rattrick, who gave Reagan and Kalen a bit of bother in the third book. What's a Renegate? Pretty much what we call a Gypsy - hence the post title and Cher reference.
Finally, we get a proper romance – in the form of a Romeo and Juliet tale. Siany, daughter of a rich headmaster falls for the endearingly shy Geraint. Only right after he fell out of a tree and broke his leg trying to pick the biggest apple for her. Too cute really. When he meets her parents for the first time, he is humiliated by his perception of their opinion of him, and then he is forced to disown Siany to save her from danger as they are ambushed crossing a bridge. She cannot forgive him, until he once again rescues her – and her parents – from a vicious Renegate gang. Their romance is hindered further still by people determined to keep them apart, until the final threat that they will die together.
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Map of Medieval Oxford
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The second part of the story focuses on so much more than their beleaguered love-story as evil incarnate threatens the entire Hengist world, beginning with a massive siege of Oxford. This part saw me poring over medieval maps of the town for many weeks, trying to fathom the complex battle strategies - I could have done with one of those maps with counters representing all the factions like they had in all the WWII movies. And one aspect of the tale bigged itself up beyond all proportion such that it not only featured in the second
Colour of Light book, but got its own stand-alone tale, Fletch’s Arrows (only available as part of the
boxset).
Being a really sad geeky type, I have the start/end dates for all my books. I started Archer on 25/3/9 (and finished on 17/4/9 – only 3 weeks from start to finish!), and finished Geraint on 7/4/9 – 5 books in just over a year. And I was teaching full time, too. Crazy stuff.
Finally, we get a proper romance – in the form of a Romeo and Juliet tale. Siany, daughter of a rich headmaster falls for the endearingly shy Geraint. Only right after he fell out of a tree and broke his leg trying to pick the biggest apple for her. Too cute really. When he meets her parents for the first time, he is humiliated by his perception of their opinion of him, and then he is forced to disown Siany to save her from danger as they are ambushed crossing a bridge. She cannot forgive him, until he once again rescues her – and her parents – from a vicious Renegate gang. Their romance is hindered further still by people determined to keep them apart, until the final threat that they will die together.
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