Books like Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish

Ms. Llywelyn obviously loves the Irish (or at least her idea of the Irish). I have read several of her books and I mostly enjoy them. (As I've said before I don't particularly enjoy romance for romance's sake). It wouldn't do to criticize this work (or any of her works) for any historical inaccuracies as her "novels" are largely fantasy not historical fiction.Ms. Llywelyn is an accomplished story teller and she can paint a picture of the mythical Ireland in which her characters move and breath that will place you in the story. She has reworked the myths and folklore of Ireland, the Celts and the Druids to fit her stories, but she is far from the first person to do so. I"d say, read it for what it is and enjoy. The look here at the history of the "Irish people" does draw me in somewhat. I (like many others I'm sure) have always been fascinated by the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and all the speculation as to who they were and where they "vanished" to. Also the Bard character in history and myth is a terribly interesting one. Showing up in the tales and histories of Scandinavians, Celts, Algles, Saxons and others they stride through the histories of the West as the history keepers, the story tellers and the traditions singers. The subject matter here is wonderful. For me often a 3 star rating is a good one, as I've noted I give few five star ratings, and there aren't any half stars, so I had to compromise. The slightly heavy handed romance angle of the story weighed against it "for me". I don't mind romance and I know it's a big part of life AND of Irish myth. The Irish are a romantic people and "in that sense" I'm basically a romantic. Speaking of novels however I don't enjoy books that are "romances" meaning primarily "love stories". When a love story begins to dominate a novel in that it becomes a detailed telling of the trials and travails of the lovers and their soap opera style relationship, then it begins to lose. There is a bit of this here, not so much as to destroy the rest of the novel, just enough that it dominated a lot of the story. I'm sure some will enjoy it more than I as the writing is quite good. For some of you this will even make the book that much better...so if we had a half star system it would be 3.5. Try it yourself and see what you think.I do recommend it.