For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2...This book fulfills the ‘published in the year you were born’ obligation for my 2015 Reading Challenge – but really, I was long overdue for another Brother Cadfael mystery. I have mentioned before that I am easily scared and gore really does not interest me in the slightest. Increasingly, modern crime fiction seems to concentrate on progressively baroque incidents that really put the offensive into criminal offense, all of it solved using high-powered technology and borderline supernatural forensic techniques. I am thinking here in particular of Criminal Minds, which my family enjoyed for the first two series but then the rising levels of sexual depravity put us off. We were not alone – one of the show’s chief leads left it for the same reason. It’s interesting to me therefore that people such as my own dear Dad are turning towards vintage crime. Sophie Hannah wrote an Agatha Christie inspired Poirot story. More and more pieces of crime fiction are being set in the 1940s or even earlier. If you like The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, or The Railway Detective – remember, Ellis Peters was doing that whole vintage thing several decades ago. Cadfael is crime fiction for people who don’t like crime.rose rentThis is Cadfael’s thirteenth outing but given that I tend to read them in no particular order, I am not sure how far into the series I really am. Oddly though, this was the only story which I remember being adapted for television. I watched it aged roughly nine and tried to read it the book but gave up after only a few pages. Still, the mists of time had made the ending slightly fuzzy so I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. The plot revolves around wealthy widow Judith Perle – still only twenty-five, she is mourning her husband who passed away four years previously, the grief of which caused her to miscarry a much-wanted baby. Mistress Perle has chosen to make a gift of the house she once shared with her husband to the abbey, requesting only one white rose a year as rent. However, with the deadline for the rent approaching, it appears that someone is very keen for the contract to be defaulted upon, with first the rose bush being attacked and then Mistress Perle herself going missing.Ellis Peters is a very gentle writer, the very sentences of her prose feel dainty. Each book introduces where we are with the Stephen-Matilda conflict before zooming in to the action in Shrewsbury. Although it may stretch credulity slightly that all these crimes could occur in such a relatively small town and that the person best-placed to investigate should be a monk who has sworn to a life in the cloister, but somehow it works. Cadfael, as regular readers of the series are aware, is no ordinary monk. He fought in the Crusades, knew the love of several good women, lived in the world and travelled it and finally, when he heard the call, he settled down to a life tending a herb garden. He is no innocent, he knows his stuff and he should never have been played onscreen by David Jacobi. Here he is called upon for life advice by the mournful Judith Perle, garden tips by people interested in the rose bush and then also a bit of the standard crime scene investigation with a sideline in footprint analysis.ellis petersThe lovely thing about coming to a series as long as The Brother Cadfael Mysteries is that for the returning reader, there are so many recurring characters and in-jokes. The Rose Rent takes place around the festival marking the translation of St Winifred, patron saint of the Abbey. Hugh Berringar, local sheriff and Cadfael’s closest friend, slyly notes that not all is as it seems about that particular figure. Sister Magdalena makes a welcome reappearance, having become something of a deus ex machina in her ability to assist Cadfael in sorting out issues of a delicate nature to do with ladies’ problems – Sister Magdalena having made her first appearance as the mistress of a murder victim who chose the cloister because she was done with living in sin but wanted something with career progression opportunities. Ellis Peters may look sweet and prim in the photos, but she has such grace for her characters – there are few sins which she is unwilling to forgive and even the most culpable characters are generally explained as having been weak or foolish or having got themselves into situations which overwhelmed them. Nobody is ever wholly evil.There is a particular unhappiness at the core of The Rose Rent however, with a strong woman being got at by all sides because her unmarried state makes her an anomaly in a world governed by strict rules. Judith Perle is beholden to no man, she has neither husband nor father to order her but nobody is willing to let her be. Peters contrasts her life as yet unfulfilled with that of Sister Magdalena who flourishes as a nun and thus hopes to expatiate her sin. On the other hand there is Niall the bronzemith, widower with a child who he has not the time to care for but who longs for a life with a greater softness. It may seem obvious that these two characters’ paths will converge but it makes it no less lovely when they do. The Rose Rent is one of those editions of the series where Cadfael himself takes something of a back seat, stepping in only at crucial moments and holding his tongue when he thinks it wise. For all that Cadfael may play by the social mores of medieval Britain, written by someone with borderline Victorian sensibilities, it is a pure comfort read. While An Excellent Mystery was a hymn to love in all its forms, I think that The Rose Rent was more about finding a way back to contentment, discovering a way and a place of being. There are few authors who write with such a holistic sense of kindness as Peters and as always, I finished The Rose Rent thinking that the world was a nicer place than I did before I started it.
I love Brother Cadfael and this is one of the better stories in the series.It is Spring 1142. There is concern in Shrewsbury that the late spring will prevent the white rose bush in Niall the bronzesmith's garden from blooming. Judith Perle, a widow, leases the house to Cadfael's Abbey for the rent of a single white rose. If the bush fails to produce a bloom by St. Winifred's feast day, the contract is broken. The monk who has delivered the rose for the past three years is found murdered next to the rose bush which has been severely damaged. Brother Cadfael and the Sheriff investigate the crime and subsequent happenings to protect Judith and maintain the contract. The plots in the Cadfael series are not meant to keep us in suspense, necessarily, but rather to provide a context for exploring the times, the characters and the culture of a medieval abbey and its neighboring village. This story is no exception but I was still entranced until I finished the book.
What do You think about The Rose Rent (1997)?
What made this book five stars instead of four was the intricate mystery plot and the character of Judith Perle.The mystery is complex - multiple murders, multiple motives, multiple perpetrators working almost in parallel - and the author handles it all with skill. The reader is privy to only a facet of the intrigue, otherwise we're following along with Cadfael and Hugh as they piece it all together. And any time Hugh is involved I'm a happy girl. Add Sister Magdalen and it approaches perfection.This book's love story is one of my favorites mostly because Judith and her eventual beau are both older and widowed, as opposed to fresh innocent youths. And Judith is a fantastic character. She's hardworking and compassionate, but struggles with loss and grief. Her struggles are hard but aren't construed as weaknesses. One of my favorite moments is when she manages to get the better of an attacker with rhetoric and force of will.
—Nancy
Medieval life was hard, doubly so for a widow. And a rich widow had her own threats, some of them murderous. Mystery did a decent job of their video of this story.Cadfael series: excellent historical fiction. Ellis Peters draws the reader into the twelfth century with modern story telling but holds us there with a richness of detail which evokes a time and place which might as well be mythic. Though the foreground of each chronicle is a murder mystery, behind it a nation and a culture are woven in a wondrous tapestry.
—Ron
The 13th book in the Brother Cadfael series. In 1142, spring is very late in arriving and there is concern in the town of Shrewsbury for the crops. There is also concern that the late spring will prevent the white rose bush in the garden of the house that Niall, the bronzesmith, rents from blooming by the feast day of St. Winifred Judith Perle, a widow whose husband and unborn child died within 20 days of each other, leases the house to the Abbey and asks only a single white rose each year as rent. If the bush fails to product a bloom by St. Winifred's feast day, the contract is broken. Brother Elurie, who had delivered the rose for the past three years to Judith, is found murdered at the base of the rose bush and the bush itself is heavily damaged in an apparent attempt to destroy it. Brother Cadfael joins the Sheriff in investigating this crime and those that come after it in an effort to protect Judith and uphold the contract. The strength of this series is not only the plot--although in this book, I guessed the outcome fairly early--but in the impressive historical research that was obviously conducted by the author. I think that it's time to revisit this series and get to know Brother Cadfael, the other brothers in the Abbey, and the residents of Shrewsbury better.
—Judy
