My Lady's Crusade

by Annette Motley

She had waited nearly two years in loneliness and longing for her husband to return from the Crusades. She had been besieged and then raped by the nobleman who coveted her lands and her body.
Lady Eden Hawkhurst was young, beautiful, and very much afraid. But she was also passionate and determined, and so she set off on a bold journey through war and captivity to find her husband...

Genres: Historical Fiction, Romance, Historical Romance, Medieval, Historical, Medieval Romance, Fiction

453 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Annette Motley lives in London. She has a degree in English and Philosophy and was a teacher. Her writing career began with short stories and serials for women's magazines, financially supported by teaching, waitressing, market research and two months in a cotton wool factory.

Reviews

[Alana]

This is my go-to trashy romance novel. I keep it around and re-read it every couple of years or so, but not because it is an amazing piece of literature or anything. It is just a easy read, that flows quickly, and has abundance of romantic scenes. Everyone has a novel like this, and this is mine.

[Bren fall in love with the sea.]

Sigh..Lady Eden. And Tristan. This is one of the first Historical Fiction books I ever read in my life which is why I think of it and smile even though let's face it, as anyone who read this knows, it isn't the best book in the world.

Still it was fun to read this even though I was but a young slip of a girl then and I remember thinking that everything that could happen to Eden happened. And yet still she stood strong. Maybe she could teach all the rest of us how she did it.

Anyway, this is in my "want to read again" category, purely out of girlhood fondness.

[Rebecca Huston]

A woman, Eden, travels from England to the Holy Land during the third crusade after her long lost lover. I have very fond memories of this one when it was published so long ago.

[Sorcha]

oooh, where to start.....As a historical romance, it's not too bad, but as the story went on, more things began to annoy me. She gets raped, kidnapped (sometimes twice in a day), runs around on horseback around most of the middle east, is considered to be of high enough rank, and yet never sees a physican? Never gets a cut or a bruise, headache or cramps? And she has all these men running around providing 20 or 30 soldiers at a time, with no consideration of how they were going to paid or fed, and no apparent concern on anyone's part that she's a sodding hazard to everyone she's around as everyone seems to get killed everytime she goes out (and STILL no physician?!). I'd consider her cursed and jixed and refuse to go anywhere near her for my own safety if nothing else. And considering that at the start of the story, her farm is supposed to be in debt to the local money lender, she blythly goes off on the crusades, without an apparent care in the world, and doesnt worry about the place being there when she gets back. Bah!

[Gem]

I wanted a Crusades-era romance and this filled that gap - and, as a historical romance, it wasn't that bad.

But there were things that irritated me - the amount of rape and attempted rape being the main thing. I don't have a problem with rape being included in a novel but I just found it excessive in this book.

Also, Eden breaks all the rules and lies to get to see Eleanor - but she gets away with it, gets invited on the Crusade, and goes off for months/years without a worry about the land and people she was supposed to be looking after. There is never, then, any mention to how she pays her way on the Crusades - how she affords to be the Queen's companion.

Overall: a light read, fairly enjoyable.

[Misfit]

getting via bookmooch

[Kili]

Really struggled to stay interested in this book, which is surprising, given the genre

[Naksed]

Overly long novel that could not make up its mind whether it was a realistic historical fiction, or a purple-prose filled bodice ripper. Although I enjoyed many parts of it, especially the scenes involving Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard Lionheart, I really struggled to finish it. The gist of the story is that the protagonist, an English noblewoman improbably named Eden, is awaiting the return of her husband, who has left for the crusades.

One night, she is violently attacked and raped by her overlord, who is eager to take possession of her lands and her body, in that order. Eden courageously appeals to Queen Eleanor, recently released from her captivity by the death of her spouse, and receives permission to accompany the Queen on her journey to join her son Richard Lionheart in his Crusade. The rest of the story is Eden’s long, torturous journey to reunite with her husband, who has been taken prisoner by the Saracens.

Eden has many misadventures, in the style of those 1970s bodice-rippers, with harems, and enslavement, and disguises, and shipwrecks, and battles galore. She even takes a couple of lovers en route. lol. She eventually finds out that her husband has turned into an opium addict and has become the plaything of his captor. She reunites with one of her lovers and returns home to England.

This story had neither the whimsical charm and humor of Bertrice Small nor the gripping realism of Norah Lofts or Cecelia Holland. Overall, it wasn’t a bad reading experience but it wasn’t great either.

[Caz]

Read this well over twenty years ago... I like Motley's writing; shame her books are OOP.

[Julia]

Two years after her husband Stephen departed their estate to "take up the cross" and join the Third Crusade, Lady Eden of Hawkhurst is assaulted and her home and lands threatened by a nearby landowner. Unwilling to suffer further abuse or wait passively any longer, she resolves to rescue herself by riding to Winchester to appeal to the queen for assistance. In Winchester Castle, she is welcomed by Eleanor of Aquitaine and her ladies and, further, invited to travel with them to seek out the crusaders and, with luck, her missing husband.

I sought out this book at the recommendation of author Marina Fiorati, listed among her favorite historical fiction novels, and I have to admit I was dubious upon first glancing at the very 1970s romance cover art. Though there is undeniably a romantic element, I found it to be less a romance than a tale of adventure to places unknown and exotic at a time when women were unlikely to have the means, authority or social station to do so. Recommended, if you can find it -- I had to request an inter-library loan out of state.