Social networking has much for which to answer. A member of a Facebook fan group clued me into this series of medieval mysteries. I will track down more as I can.

Audiobook narrated by Erin Jones, and borrowed from the National Library for the Blind.

A bit slow but I’ll continue to read the series.

So-so. But I don't understand how a nun could travel by herself, even with her dogs. I thought they had to travel in pairs.

I do love stepping back in time, especially through the safety of a looking glass that is my book. The sights and smells enthrall me. The desperation and brutality horrify me. This tale was no less thought provoking and entertaining than other medieval murder mysteries I've read. I did find it hard to finish though and stay with the story. It was a bit dry and slow paced although there always seemed to be something going on. I'm a huge fan of The Mistress of the Art of Death Mistress of the Art ...

It seems to me, in my limited understanding, that there are two types of crime books: one where the crime is massively interesting and well worked out and you really couldn't see the answers coming a mile away and you become engrossed in clues, and the other type, where everything is obvious, but you love the characters and the atmosphere so much that you don't care.This book succeeds in neither of these categories. Don't get me wrong, it's fine. The period detail seemed to be mostly well observ...

In November of 1382 Hildegard is dispatched from the priory of Swyne to the city of York with a letter for its archbishop and a mission to try and secure permission to establish a priory of her own. In the forest between York and the abbey of Meaux she stumbles across five corpses hanging on a gibbet and then another body; a young man brutally murdered, his throat cut, stomach slashed and guts spilled. It is just over a year since the Peasant's Rebellion and its brutal aftermath, so the fact tha...

I bought this book for the simple reason that, having won the second in the series from a Goodreads Giveaway, I felt it would be much fairer to read this first book first.The story of "Hangman Blind" is set in Yorkshire, which I know a little about, at a time I know not much about at all. I had heard of the Peasants' Revolt, John Wyclif and Wat Tyler, but only briefly in passing. I'm not generally interested in politics, so I wasn't sure whether this tale was going to be my cup of tea after all....

The author refers to a "flock of carrion" and seems to think "carrion" is a synonym for "crows."

The woods "were bristling with the sound of falling water."

"His body was not yet fixed in the rigour of death and she was able to prise his fingers apart one by one. Giving up what had been grasped so fiercely at hte moment of death, his fingers softly opened."

These things do not make sense. They really don't.

***

I bailed out early.

Meh. This sort of stank. I love historical mysteries, but this was basically a copycat of Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death, but not so masterfully. It needed a much better copyeditor, which is kind of inexcusable, and she does a poor job of giving the reader a window into the political climate of the time, which is obviously central to her planned series. She just dumps you right in the middle of a lot of confusing detail, and normally I am the type to run straight to Wikipedia and...