{"id":51,"date":"2007-10-27T23:29:08","date_gmt":"2007-10-28T03:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/27\/review-of-the-canterbury-papers-by-judith-koll-healey\/"},"modified":"2007-10-29T21:39:12","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T01:39:12","slug":"review-of-the-canterbury-papers-by-judith-koll-healey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Canterbury Papers, by Judith Koll Healey"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"book-details\">\n<div id=\"book-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image50\" height=\"90\" alt=\"canterburypapers.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/canterburypapers.jpg\" \/>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div \/>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"starred-review\" src=\"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/star.gif\" \/>The Canterbury Papers\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A Novel of Suspense<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"book-author\">by Judith Koll Healey<\/div>\n<p>Reviewed December 17, 2006.<br \/>\nWilliam Morrow, New York, 2004. 353 pages.<br \/>\nStarred Review.<br \/>\nSonderbooks Stand-out 2007: #1, Romance Fiction<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I loved this book! The subtitle says it\u2019s a novel of suspense, but it\u2019s also a historical mystery tale with romance, intrigue, and a smart, capable heroine.<\/p>\n<p>The book features an actual historical character, Ala\u00efs Capet, the daughter of Louis VII and his second wife, Constance of Castile. At a very young age, Ala\u00efs and her sister Marguerite were sent to England to live with the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the first wife of Louis VII.<\/p>\n<p>Ala\u00efs and Marguerite were betrothed to Henry II\u2019s sons, Ala\u00efs to Richard the Lionheart, and Marguerite to Henry Court Mantel. However, when Eleanor lost favor with Henry for plotting with her sons against him, he had her imprisoned in a tower and took Ala\u00efs as his mistress. She never married Richard.<\/p>\n<p>The book opens many years later. Richard and Henry are both dead and the younger brother John is ruling England, but doesn\u2019t have a firm hold on the throne. Eleanor sends Ala\u00efs to Canterbury to recover some letters which might hurt John\u2019s power. Eleanor hints that she can give Ala\u00efs information about a secret near to her heart, a secret she long thought was dead and buried.<\/p>\n<p>The person in charge of Canterbury, William of Caen, once also lived in the court of Henry and Eleanor. He took his lessons with the royal children, including Ala\u00efs, and was tormented by the princes, because he was their father\u2019s favorite. Ala\u00efs finds him quite changed since she last saw him. He also seems to know more than he lets on.<\/p>\n<p>Ala\u00efs is kidnapped just before she is able to recover the letters. She\u2019s held in the same tower where Eleanor was once imprisoned. Now King John wants information from her\u2014information she doesn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n<p>This story is full of action, suspense, and romance, and is highly enjoyable reading. I wouldn\u2019t call it chick lit, because the historical background and political intrigue give it more weight than your typical light mystery. This is Judith Koll Healey\u2019s first novel, but I hope there will be many, many more to follow!<\/p>\n<p>This review is on the main site at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/canterburypapers.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/canterburypapers.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The Canterbury Papers\u00a0 A Novel of Suspense by Judith Koll Healey Reviewed December 17, 2006. William Morrow, New York, 2004. 353 pages. Starred Review. Sonderbooks Stand-out 2007: #1, Romance Fiction I loved this book! The subtitle says it\u2019s a novel of suspense, but it\u2019s also a historical mystery tale with romance, intrigue, and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32,6,24,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-review","category-historical","category-mystery","category-romance","category-stand-outs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}