CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW - THE REFINER OF THE REALM (THE CELTIC CROSS BOOK 3) & AN ALL CONSUMING FIRE (MONASTERY MURDERS BOOK 5) BY DONNA FLETCHER CROW

In 1068, is Queen Margaret capable of civilizing Scottish King Malcolm and helping protect the people from invading William the Conquerer? In 1993, is Mary's fiance right that she's wasting her time learning about Scottish church history?

The Refiner of the Realm: Of Queens and Clerics is the third book of Donna Fletcher Crow's ten part Celtic Cross series (the first four books looking at Scotland, the remainder crossing over to Ireland). Like the rest of the series, the more contemporary part of the story (1993) has a brief section at the beginning and the end of each book, with the primary focus being on the historical story. 

I am learning a lot about Scottish history in this series, and will probably be doing the same with Ireland when I get to the fifth book. I enjoy this story and the characters in it.

One note. Donna Fletcher Crow released a compilation book a couple of years ago titled A Lighted Lamp: Scenes of Christmas Through Time. The first of seven "scenes" is an excerpt from the above novel. The final (and longest) excerpt is from An All Consuming Fire, book five of the Monastery Murders. This series follows American Felicity Howard and British Church History instructor Father Antony (my favorite fictional character as they solve mysteries through the course of a year, learning about British Church history along the way (and of course, each mystery coincides with a Christian holiday, book five dealing with Christmas). Here is my review of that book:

    "Is this the final installment of the Monastery Murder series by Donna Fletcher Crow? I hope not, but if it is, she pulled out all the stops. This is the strongest plot of the series - and that says something. My favorite is still the third entry, An Unholy Communion, but An All-Consuming Fire is in my opinion the best.

    "Of course, there are weaknesses to even the best stories. While Felicity and Antony are very complex characters (the latter being my favorite fictitious character), Crow may have weakened the story by having Antony with a group of characters filming a TV series while Felicity works with another group of characters planning an epiphany play. Most of the characters in either group were underdeveloped. It helps that Crow included a cast of characters at the beginning.

    "What if you haven't read any of the previous stories? While I'd recommend reading them in order for maximum enjoyment, I think one can read them out of order. You won't feel lost if An All-Consuming Fire is the first one you read, nor will it ruin the surprises in the earlier stories.

    "This series deals with an Anglican (almost Catholic) perspective. Thus, if you don't like favorable presentations of the Christian faith in fiction, you won't like this. Its views may not be typical for many fundamentalists or evangelicals (it stretched my thinking). On the other side, there are elements in this story in particular that might be uncomfortable for some Christian readers - there are isolated references to drugs and pornography in this story: of course, both are considered negative, but some Christians feel more comfortable if those things weren't included.

    "I highly recommend this book, as well as the other four books in the series."

Hope you enjoyed this double review feature, with the goal of helping you get in the Christmas Spirit (this is posted on the 7th of December, so you may already be in it). I highly recommend this book, this series, and A Lighted Lamp. (If you look at the December entries for both 2020 and 2021, you'll notice that I have my review of A Lighted Lamp both years, my first repeat blog!