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Title: The Hermit of Eyton Forest
Series: Brother Cadfael #14
Author: Ellis Peters
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 240
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
A young novitiate’s father dies. His grandmother wants him to come home so he can marry a neighbor’s daughter so the grandmother can rule all. However, the father’s wishes were for him to stay at the Abbey and learn until he reached his majority.
At the same time, a saintly hermit and his young assistant move into an abandoned hermitage. A landowner comes looking for his runaway serf and is murdered. The young heir also goes missing. All of this is happening while the war between Stephen and Maude continues apace.
Cadfael must put the pieces of this puzzle together while making sure that justice is served and mercy has its place.
| My Thoughts: |
Cadfael was almost a background character here. It was more about the hermit’s assistant than anything else. And his story was all about “young love” conquering all. It kind of made me roll my eyes. I guess I’m getting too old and cynical.
I still enjoyed the overall story but I’m not sure that Cadfael tagging along while everyone else does the actual work makes this a Brother Cadfael Mystery. However nothing here is going to stop anyone from continuing this series. If you’ve stuck around this long, you’ll keep on sticking around. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to complain like a son of a monkey about the tenuous link.
★★★☆☆
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
I see you’re still going at it…
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Yep and probably will until the end, book 23 I believe? So be prepared for complaining and moaning the whole time 😀
This is the kind of story that I don’t mind but I am griping so much that in later years I can read my review and make sure I never re-read these. Now that would just be masochistic…
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Damn.. 14 books into the series. That’s dedication. I’ve always wondered how different every book could be when a series is this long. Would’ve thought that the author’s focus might shift onto secondary characters from time to time and make them the protagonist just to keep the series alive. Sort of like how in long TV shows/animes, there would be episodes dedicated just for one character and their POV.
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Well, Cadfael not being a main character is definitely happening more. The problem is that Peters can write a good one-off mystery but it takes real skill to develop a character and honestly, Cadfael is exactly the same as in book 1.
I definitely use this a spacer between my SFF oriented books 🙂
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