Historical fiction succeeds best when the reader cannot tell the fiction from the history. In his third novel, The Girl and The Sword, Gerald Weaver adroitly pulls this off, in a sweeping good read, about the power of love to change history.
The Sword is Simon de Montfort, and this is his story, from the 1220s, when he inserts himself into affairs in England, to his death a few decades later. And it is the story of Henry III of England and of evolutions in English government. But the novel isn’t truly their story; it’s the tale of Pauline de Pamiers- The Girl- a Cathar from southern France who rises to manage the de Montfort estates and affairs in both England and France. Weaver skillfully weaves her story into one of religious persecution, Holy Land Crusades, court intrigue and power struggles in England, and the lives of the common folk of the times.