A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux – Review
Not being a fan of time travel stories, I stopped reading Jude Deveraux’s ‘A Knight in Shining Armor’, even though it appears on some recommended romance reading lists. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it.
It contains a number of similarities with the film ‘Kate and Leopold’, in that the reader is exposed to the reactions of the person transported to their new environment, encountering unknown customs, foods, machinery inventions, etc. It also has the element of suspense and urgency of people needing to find a way to get back to their original time in history, in time to prevent or facilitate future events.
Dougless Montgomery is considered a failure compared to his high-achieving brethren. With his low self-esteem, he has allowed himself to be used by his boyfriend, with whom he lives in the United States. While on vacation in England in 1988, she gets into a big argument with her boyfriend and her teenage daughter, which ends with her being dumped in an old English church with no money or passport.
As she weeps over the tomb of a 16th-century English earl, she wishes for a knight in shining armor. His cries are heard by Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck, to whom the grave belongs only now, he is standing right in front of it. He tells her that his crying has summoned him from the year 1564, where he was awaiting execution for treason, a crime he did not commit. It takes Dougless quite a while to believe that he is really who she says she is, and she will join him on the quest to find out who framed him. The more time they spend together, the closer they feel to each other. Having discovered love and believing that they also found out who had betrayed Nicholas, they begin to plan a life together in the 20th century. Without warning, Nicholas returns to the 16th century. However, the story has not changed: Nicholas was still executed.
Crying again in church, Dougless flashes back to 1560, four years before the execution. Despite the fact that she has been invited by Nicholas’s mother to live in the Stafford family home, she has a lot of work ahead of her to try to get her warnings across to Nicholas, since he does not remember or recognize anything about her and leaves her in the dark. Of course he doesn’t trust her. Time is against Dougless as certain events begin to set in motion so that other events continue to occur just as they are printed in the history books.
Dougless isn’t your typical strong-minded heroine and can be hard to relate to at first, as she’s too much of a doormat with absolutely nothing of value. So the first twelve pages of chapter one may leave the reader wondering if she really wants to bother reading more of the book. Fortunately, it improves markedly when her boyfriend and daughter no longer actively interact with Dougless. She develops some courage as her character grows throughout the book.
The name ‘Dougless’ bothered me, particularly at the beginning of the story. It slowed down my reading as I kept pausing in my mind, checking that yes, that is the female character he is referring to.
Nicholas is not a stereotypical gentleman. He does not pounce and meets all the needs of the sick heroine. He is strong, masculine, loyal, loving, intelligent, and they share a connection that takes time for them to understand, accept, and develop. Ultimately, they rescue each other, their souls intertwined over 400 years. The downside is that he remains a chauvinist, in both the 16th and 20th centuries. Nicholas approaches many of the modern items with raw fascination.
By three-quarters of the way through the book, I was really rooting for Dougless and Nicholas to end up together, but couldn’t imagine how the author could make it happen. Well, she didn’t. It was not a predictable ending. Romantically, it was disappointing, though more ‘realistic’, if realistic can be applied, expected or anticipated in a time travel story. People will probably either love or hate the ending as it’s bittersweet.
Some of the historical facts from the Elizabethan era were very interesting, but half of them were presented in a way that was more of a lecture or history lesson, rather than more woven into the story. We were saying rather than shownand sometimes he dominated the story, leaving the developing relationship in the background.
In A Knight in Shining Armor, Jude Deveraux has created a realistic time travel experience that is a moving story.