I am talking about Laura Kinsale's Shadowheart.
Set in the High Middle Ages, the book revolves around Elena, the heiress presumptive to the rule of Monteverde, a fictional Italian principality, and Alegretto, the illegitimate son of a rival ruling family.
Elena is sent out from England, where she has been living, to Monteverde in order to marry the man currently ruling it and to solidify his claim. But her ship gets intercepted and she gets captured by a mysterious assassin known as Allegretto. Alegretto is a pirate and a former assassin, but he is also the illegitimate son of a previous Monteverde ruler and he pushes Elena into marriage to lay his own claim to rule.
I am in love with this book even though the OTP is beyond fucked up, separately and together. Alegretto is a total mess - having been brought up as an assassin from childhood by his own father (!!!), dude is not exactly a cuddly woobie, but a total and utter deadly mess. And there is Elena/Alegretto's dysfunctional relationship - I cannot think of the last time I read a mainstream romance where the couple get off on the heroine hurting the hero in bed (!!!!!). It starts out as her rebellion and anger against powerlessness in all the schemes around her, but transforms into something else - in a way they work together because she can be her darkest with him and he likes the pain because of his penance issues plus he knows she is the one person who is not afraod of hom and he is safe with - she doesn't really want to kill him/maim him/torture him/etc and so he can let go and not be a death machine. When you add in the real presence of religion that a lot of medieval novels leave out (Alegretto is certain he is going to Hell and terrified of it), this is not your usual romance novel.
I confess it took me a quarter of the book to get into it and I kept meaning to ditch it but then Elena and Alegretto finally meet and somehow I found really really getting invested and now I am obsessed. They are SO FUCKED UP and CODEPENDENT. I do tend to skip the sex scenes because ugh disturbing. Sorry, S&M freaks me the hell out. I don't care what consenting adults do in the privacy of their dungeons, but it's about as opposite from 'my thing' as it's possible to be so reading about freaks me out and I just wish to send the leads to a therapist instead of all the biting and clawing and blood. If you can overlook the S&M, it's a great read.
There are two versions of this novel - the older version uses 'old fashioned' language and the newer one doesn't, plus LK trimmed it a bit in the newer one (the older book is a BEAST, size-wise, for a romance novel). I am a completist, so I am reading the older version, but I did enough peeks into the newer one to think I like the newer one better.
Set in the High Middle Ages, the book revolves around Elena, the heiress presumptive to the rule of Monteverde, a fictional Italian principality, and Alegretto, the illegitimate son of a rival ruling family.
Elena is sent out from England, where she has been living, to Monteverde in order to marry the man currently ruling it and to solidify his claim. But her ship gets intercepted and she gets captured by a mysterious assassin known as Allegretto. Alegretto is a pirate and a former assassin, but he is also the illegitimate son of a previous Monteverde ruler and he pushes Elena into marriage to lay his own claim to rule.
I am in love with this book even though the OTP is beyond fucked up, separately and together. Alegretto is a total mess - having been brought up as an assassin from childhood by his own father (!!!), dude is not exactly a cuddly woobie, but a total and utter deadly mess. And there is Elena/Alegretto's dysfunctional relationship - I cannot think of the last time I read a mainstream romance where the couple get off on the heroine hurting the hero in bed (!!!!!). It starts out as her rebellion and anger against powerlessness in all the schemes around her, but transforms into something else - in a way they work together because she can be her darkest with him and he likes the pain because of his penance issues plus he knows she is the one person who is not afraod of hom and he is safe with - she doesn't really want to kill him/maim him/torture him/etc and so he can let go and not be a death machine. When you add in the real presence of religion that a lot of medieval novels leave out (Alegretto is certain he is going to Hell and terrified of it), this is not your usual romance novel.
I confess it took me a quarter of the book to get into it and I kept meaning to ditch it but then Elena and Alegretto finally meet and somehow I found really really getting invested and now I am obsessed. They are SO FUCKED UP and CODEPENDENT. I do tend to skip the sex scenes because ugh disturbing. Sorry, S&M freaks me the hell out. I don't care what consenting adults do in the privacy of their dungeons, but it's about as opposite from 'my thing' as it's possible to be so reading about freaks me out and I just wish to send the leads to a therapist instead of all the biting and clawing and blood. If you can overlook the S&M, it's a great read.
There are two versions of this novel - the older version uses 'old fashioned' language and the newer one doesn't, plus LK trimmed it a bit in the newer one (the older book is a BEAST, size-wise, for a romance novel). I am a completist, so I am reading the older version, but I did enough peeks into the newer one to think I like the newer one better.