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Raider's Tide #2
North Side of the Tree
The continuation of Beatrice and Robert's story, historical drama set in 16th Century border country. In Raider's Tide, Beatrice, a sixteen-year-old English girl, saves Robert a Scot from death. She has risked her own life, by helping the enemy but in turn is rescued by John, the local pastor. After nearly drowning, and with Robert gone, Beatrice finds it difficult to settle back into everyday life. She starts to learn healing with the Cockleshell Man but is too distraught to concentrate well. A quarrel with her father results in her leaving home to stay at the Parsonage out father's way. There, her relationship with John deepens and they become betrothed. Meanwhile several captured Scots are imprisoned in the infamous dungeons of Lancaster Castle. Robert is among them - he did not make it across the brder. The prisoners are almost certain to be hanged after their trials at the Lent Assizes. Beatrice makes repeated attempts to free him, but nothing works and Robert is condemned to die. In desperation Beatrice plots with some travelling players to rescue Robert and in doing so, she jeapordises her relationship with John and narrowly escapes being thrown into jail herself. In saving Robert, Beatrice has become a fugitive from the law herself...and Scotland is the only place she can go.
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First published February 3, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 30, 2022
Clearly well-researched about the time-period and not in a name-dropping info-dumping way, but with little details and thoughtful about how people interact with things as if the author has actually lived there. I picked this up in a charity shop, so went in blind having not read the first one, but enjoyed it and as the ending appears to lead to a third book I was hoping to read that. Sadly looking online it seems like one has never been written which is disappointing.
October 14, 2011
North Side of the Tree – Maggie Prince :: Monday, June 06, 2011 ~ ISBN: 0-00-713085-6 ***spoiler alert***
Book cover: Robert comes to me at night, his footsteps beneath my window, along the landing, outside my door. By day he stands in dark corners, glimpsed from the corner of my eye.
Beatrice dreams of an enemy she once saved from certain death – a raider from over the border. When news of Robert’s capture and imprisonment reach her, she knows she must help him once more. But how can she, alone, rescue an enemy from the dungeons of the heavily guarded Lancaster Castle? How can she avoid being captured herself… and punished for treason? And must she betray the man she loves for the sake of the one she adores?
Praise for RAIDER’S TIDE
‘The border raider in me couldn’t resist this powerful historical romance set in Elizabethan times.’ – The Herald
‘… this brilliantly pacy and stylish historical novel crackles with tension and secrets.’ – ?
---------------------------------------------------
It took a wee while to get into this young adult novel but once I was hooked I found the intensity of this story startling, it quite took my breath away. There’s a pure depth of feeling here laced with such a tone of honest sincerity it was enthralling.
The North Side of the Tree is the follow up book to Raiders Tide by Maggie Prince (which I have not read), the plot line in this novel, shadows Beatrice Garth, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a local Squire living in English Border area in the sixteen Century. Across these border areas Scottish and English raiding parties regularly antagonise each other and in the book preceding this Beatrice met and rescued Robert a Scottish man who was struggling to put a stop to the fighting. Robert was eventfully taken prisoner, being mistaken for and, accused of being a raider. Beatrice is heart sore by the knowledge he is in chains somewhere nearby, she knows not where, while he awaits sentencing and execution and depressed by the fact that offering him any type of help seems an impossible task.
In this manner Beatrice’s life yet again becomes fraught with perilous moments of swift risky action followed by periods, days, weeks and even months of tense waiting.
Beatrice has the friendship and support of her local parson, John Becker, who though a keen promoter of justice and also interested in stopping the fighting, has little influence to affect change. How far they both can go in standing up against the authorities is debatable, the issue is fraught with dilemmas. In fact John, twenty five years of age, is in love with Beatrice wants to marry her and is waiting till she has recovered her self after the disappointments of a thwarted and inadvisable attachment with Robert. As Beatrice feels locked into attachments with both men she is in great distress. In the first instance feeling honour bound to help Robert by which ever means she can bring to bear to release him she decides to work on a bold plan to single handily release him from captivity. She borrows Johns black stallion Universe and sets off with a cart…
Weighty with a realistic edge and great atmospheric historic detail, this provided an agonised balance of fraught action with long periods where patience was essential. Confidently written this was a delight to come across.
Book cover: Robert comes to me at night, his footsteps beneath my window, along the landing, outside my door. By day he stands in dark corners, glimpsed from the corner of my eye.
Beatrice dreams of an enemy she once saved from certain death – a raider from over the border. When news of Robert’s capture and imprisonment reach her, she knows she must help him once more. But how can she, alone, rescue an enemy from the dungeons of the heavily guarded Lancaster Castle? How can she avoid being captured herself… and punished for treason? And must she betray the man she loves for the sake of the one she adores?
Praise for RAIDER’S TIDE
‘The border raider in me couldn’t resist this powerful historical romance set in Elizabethan times.’ – The Herald
‘… this brilliantly pacy and stylish historical novel crackles with tension and secrets.’ – ?
---------------------------------------------------
It took a wee while to get into this young adult novel but once I was hooked I found the intensity of this story startling, it quite took my breath away. There’s a pure depth of feeling here laced with such a tone of honest sincerity it was enthralling.
The North Side of the Tree is the follow up book to Raiders Tide by Maggie Prince (which I have not read), the plot line in this novel, shadows Beatrice Garth, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a local Squire living in English Border area in the sixteen Century. Across these border areas Scottish and English raiding parties regularly antagonise each other and in the book preceding this Beatrice met and rescued Robert a Scottish man who was struggling to put a stop to the fighting. Robert was eventfully taken prisoner, being mistaken for and, accused of being a raider. Beatrice is heart sore by the knowledge he is in chains somewhere nearby, she knows not where, while he awaits sentencing and execution and depressed by the fact that offering him any type of help seems an impossible task.
In this manner Beatrice’s life yet again becomes fraught with perilous moments of swift risky action followed by periods, days, weeks and even months of tense waiting.
Beatrice has the friendship and support of her local parson, John Becker, who though a keen promoter of justice and also interested in stopping the fighting, has little influence to affect change. How far they both can go in standing up against the authorities is debatable, the issue is fraught with dilemmas. In fact John, twenty five years of age, is in love with Beatrice wants to marry her and is waiting till she has recovered her self after the disappointments of a thwarted and inadvisable attachment with Robert. As Beatrice feels locked into attachments with both men she is in great distress. In the first instance feeling honour bound to help Robert by which ever means she can bring to bear to release him she decides to work on a bold plan to single handily release him from captivity. She borrows Johns black stallion Universe and sets off with a cart…
Weighty with a realistic edge and great atmospheric historic detail, this provided an agonised balance of fraught action with long periods where patience was essential. Confidently written this was a delight to come across.
March 12, 2008
As good as the first book, and didn't go the way I expected, which is good.
February 19, 2014
Didn't like this as much as Raider's Tide. Beatrice changed and I just really, really hate Germaine.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews