One could wish that Samuel Edwards would decide to make one area of history his province. (And this goes for his other self- Noel Gerson- as well). As he switches from period to period, country to country, one has a sense of skimming the surface for a period and a region that will afford his able- if not gifted- pen, material ripe for conquest. This time Juan II was the boy king of Castile; Catherine, his English mother, was the unpopular and unofficial regent, who did little to prepare her son for his role. Into this picture came- and went- and came again, Alvaro de Luna, son of a and a Castilian nobleman, nephew of the Avignonese Pope. Schooled beyond his times, trained in the proficiencies required of knights, he was made ready for the call to serve Juan. He became the most powerful man in Castile- won honors and wealth not the happiness he craved. And this is the romanticized story of his career, and of the moment in Castile's tumultuous history when, the Moors defeated, changes bettering the case of the peasants and decreasing the power of the nobles began to appear- and the still distant thought of a united Spain was only a . Historical fiction with the trappings, but still lacking the depth one hopes to find.