Though I Live Not Where I Love: The Savernake Novels Book 12 (Medieval Murder Mysteries of Savernake Forest)

This 12th book in the Savernake Forest Medieval Mystery series by Susanna M Newstead is exactly what I have come to expect from this author. It is a tightly written, realistic, engaging, and educational journey through the times and lives of the various inhabitants of Marlborough, Savernake Forest, and environs. As always, it was impossible to put it down after reading the first few words.

Murder, mayhem, devastation, betrayal, justice thwarted, revenge, and justice achieved (of sorts) all reside within the pages of this book; and they exist in a matrix of exceedingly well researched times, locations, and people. Newstead has a virtuoso's skills with realistic conversational dialogue and most of the events and actions and interactions take place through the personal conversations (or introspection) of her characters. She has a keen historical researcher's eye for chronological insight into locations and events, as well as into the realistic actions and reactions of her characters.

One of the great pillars of her writing is that her characters are real people of those times – not easy stereotypes or two-dimensional vague sketches. When a lord or glassblower or forester or apothecary speaks, you are there with them in that moment as the author's words form the structure of real flesh and blood human beings. There is not a wasted word in any of her novels.

She is unsurpassed in giving her readers an intimate view of what this part of the world would have been like 800 years ago... for the everyday man and woman. While it was not a nice, neat, and tidy world, it was a world of real people, real actions, and real consequences. This novel is an outstanding and fascinating work of historically-based fiction and I must admit that I eagerly await her next novel and the next and the next.