tapestry by lynn kurland, madeline hunter, karen marie moning, and sherrilyn kenyon

Woven into four worlds of chivalry and honor, of danger and desire, are threads as fine as the touch of their creator, or as rough as the earthy desires ringing in the  cash register. Containing a healthy balance of these two types, Tapestry was a good read, an in-between-er that allowed me to rest my mind from my current main read, which is Prospero’s Children by Jan Siegel.

Of the four stories, my favorite is To Kiss in the Shadow by Lynn Kurland, where a young man discovers his noble quest is to love and protect a shy young woman hiding her ruined beauty behind a tapestry frame. An Interrupted Tapestry by Madeline Hunter is a sweet tale about a wealthy trader who  won the best deal of his life by finally declaring his love to an impoverished noblewoman he has loved for years, saving her from dishonor in the process. Shamelessly indulgent and escapist, Dragonswan by Sherrilyn Kenyon followed up the lust-on-first sight with an info overload of the story’s mythology so the fight and bed scenes could get it on with little competition—I didn’t care for this one.

Karen Marie Moning’s Into the Dreaming involves another Highlander, made mad from being imprisoned by the Unseelie King in an ice world for centuries; to ruin the plans of her enemy, the Seelie Queen transports a 20th-century aspiring romance novelist to 15th-century Scotland to bring some life back into the man of her dreams.This last was very funny, though I must honestly say the aspiring writer-heroine sucks at writing. Fortunately, her medieval audience are less critical of her bawdy style of writing.

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