From Amazon.com
Do not pity Alice Borchardt. Her sister, Anne Rice, may be immensely better known, but Borchardt, the older sister, is Rice's equal in presenting lush otherworlds balanced with historical detail. Indeed, Rice, in an introduction to
Devoted, cites Borchardt as an inspiration for her own fiction and an early collaborator in imaginative excess. Like the Brontës before them, the sisters' childhood was spent sharing a dream world peopled with heroes, heroines, pirates, and aliens.
As a first work, Devoted may presage the author's potential. It reads as though she were shaking the tree of her imagination to see what will drop. One story can hardly contain all the fruitful ideas that fall. Set in the year 900, the story centers on a medieval stronghold beset by invading Vikings, corrupt feudal landlords, and a traitor within. Owen, Bishop of Chantalon, is a Christian; Elin, beaten, raped, and forced into slavery by the Vikings, is of the Forest People, pagans with magical skills. Through their union, Borchardt explores the conflict between paganism and early Christianity and the flagrant inequalities between men and women, the nobility and the lesser born, and people with different beliefs. These large themes make the story overlong, sometimes threatening to take it over. But the monumental, blood-soaked clashes between the Saxons and the Vikings; the descriptions of household artifacts, weaponry, and fashion in the Middle Ages; and, of course, the heart of the tale: the love that is hammered into being like a coat of woven mail between Owen and Elin, make this first novel a worthwhile read. --Brenda Pittsley
From Publishers Weekly
Gut-roiling battle scenes are the strength of this first novel set in ninth-century France, but they come too late and too infrequently to inspire most readers to forgive the overwrought prose that surrounds them. Owen, Bishop of Chantalon, risks his life to save Elin, a forest girl of sorceresslike powers who has escaped the Viking camp where she was enslaved. Undying love develops between the two?instantly, with no setbacks and little tension?and is expressed often and graphically. Viking raiders are terrorizing the region; their menace is exacerbated by Count Anton and his bastard son Gerlos, who collect tributes from the people for the Vikings but keep part of the confiscated riches for themselves. Betrayed by his friend Reynald, Owen is captured by the "Northmen" but quickly saved by his Saxon henchman Enar and a band of Elin's "forest people." Later, Elin's mystical powers curse Reynald to his death and bring on a storm to defeat the northern invaders. Borchardt effectively conjures life in a far-flung era, but more action and less romance might have made this tale of an odd alliance between early Christians and European pagans a fresher read.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
