I"ve been on holidays, so I've managed to read a lot. Yay me :)

Book number 18 for the year is The Knight by the Pool by Sophie Masson. It's a tale of early medieval France, specifically involving the quarrelsome Plantagent family of England, mainly Richard the Lion Heart himself. Although really, this novel is about Marie de France, a young, recently widowed woman who finds herself drawn into the rather magical world of French folklore.

Marie marries kind Hoel of Broceliande (a forest known throught French and Arthurian literature as being extremely magical), a man much older than herself, but loves her deeply and treats her well. Marie is a bit of a dreamer, well educated, with a passion for books. She is fond of Hoel, but does not feel great passion for him. She feels some regret about this, but really cannot figure out how to change how she feels. Their young child dies, and then Hoel himself passes away, and this loss moves Marie into deeper feeling for her family, but that, once again is tinged with guilt.

Deep in the forest though, she comes across a mysterious knight who tells her that she is to be beloved of another, mainly that she will be with Prince Richard of England (he's not king yet). She's not quite certain what to think of this, but does set out to eventually meet up with her brother, and return to her father's lands.

This mystery though, is not the only one surrounding the forest of Broceliande; Hoel's brother went missing in there, and Hoel's family history is wrapped up amongst tales of wolves and transforming beasts. But none of this is really known to Marie.

On her travels, Marie does indeed meet Richard the Lion Hearted, and it is love at first sight for both of them. But embarking on a love affair with a member of the powerful Plantagent family is no easy thing; there is much family betrayal, and Richard is supposed to marry a young, French princess, but none of this matters to Richard, and he swears he will be with Marie. And as far as Marie is concerned, she has found someone who has finally roused her passion.

All in all, this is a rather difficult book to explain, for there are many plot threads, including a betrayal by Marie's cousin, a monestary of nuns, tales of werewolves and shapeshifting and of course, the great French Trickster, Renard.

It is a well done book, the weaving of the folklore and the history of medieval France is very well done. The characters are crisp and interesting, and Masson writes Renard very well. I don't know a lot about French folklore (outside of the French Arthurian connections obviously), so I did find this book very interesting. It's the first of a trilogy, so I would like to find the others and continue on.