Ms Clare writes a good story around the characters of Helewise and Josse, with the abbey and its loveable inhabitants solving mysteries on the edge of the great forest. Alongside (and threaded through) this more usual historical mystery is another, stranger story of wise pagan folk and their magical history, a man who can turn into a bear and ancient guardians. I don’t profess to know much about pagan practices in the late 12th century, but there is a strong New Age feel about Joanna and her people, with their free love and hodgepodge of mystical beliefs. The two do not sit well together, and I found myself reading rather a different type of novel to the one I thought I had chosen. I think the author needs to make up her mind whether she wants to write historical mystery or historical fantasy, as I have always enjoyed her whodunits very much. This new direction is for a rather different reader, and it will be interesting to see in which direction subsequent books lean.