I know - big shock, a woman-hating priest in the Middle Ages! Granted, the opening scene is explained later and Father Micah's subsequent murder seems fitting - indeed, long overdue given his nasty, sadistic nature and gift for alienating everyone - it was still rather hard going to get through those scenes. The less than enthusiastic rating comes from distaste of the opening brutal rape scene and the vicious, maniacal misogyny displayed by Father Micah, a horrible replacement priest come to take over the duties of Father Gilbert while he recuperates from an accident.

It will never take the place of Brothers Athelstan or Cadfael or Dame Frevisse in my heart, but I do like Abbess Helewise and her friend and confidante, Sir Josse d'Acquin. The waters of this spring are similar in colour and taste to Tunbridge Wells's famous Chalybeat Spring, and it was this that prompted Alys's setting of her fictional Hawkenlye Abbey in the very spot where her own house now stands.Ģ.5-3 stars, it was ok and I liked most of it I've slowly read this series in order over the years. In England, Alys's study overlooks a stretch of parkland which includes a valley with a little spring. She lives for part of the year in Brittany, in a remote cottage deep in an ancient landscape where many past inhabitants have left their mark on her doorstep are relics that date from the stone circles and dolmens of the Neolithic to the commanderies, chapels and ancient tracks of those infamous warrior monks, the Knights Templar. Brought up in the countryside close to where the Hawkenlye Novels are set, she went to school in Tonbridge and later studied archaeology at the University of Kent. Alys Clare is the pen name used by Elizabeth Harris for the Hawkenlye series of historical mysteries.Īlys Clare is the pseudonym of a novelist with some 20 published works to her name.

A Dark Night Hidden by Alys Clare