The Rose Rent

The Thirteenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael

By: Ellis Peters

Narrated by: Nadia May

A late spring in 1142 has the Abbey monks dismayed, for there may be no roses by June 22nd. For three years, the wealthy young widow Judith Perle has rented her house to the monks for the price of a single rose each year. When nature finally complies, a pious monk is sent to pay the rent—and found murdered beside the hacked rose-bush.

Without a rose, the monks’ rental contract becomes void, adding greatly to the widow’s dowry. But before Brother Cadfael can ponder if a greedy suitor has done this dreadful deed, another crime is committed. Now the good monk must thread his way through a tangle more tortuous than the widow’s thorny bushes.

©1986 Ellis Peters (P)1990 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Peters is in fine form in this 13th book, with a leisurely mystery that once again creates a 12th century world that is both comfortable and strange, and a series of delightful, interesting characters.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Great book

So easy to read. Characters full and alive.

I loved reading
it very much indeed.

Good on balance

May reads too fast and there's not enough vocal differentiation of the various characters, but it's still a wonderful story and a very good mystery.

Good story

One of the better Cadfael stories, well-paced and intriguing. It's not the most challenging whodunit, as I could guess the murderer fairly early on, but the characters and writing are both pretty enchanting, so I stayed with it. The only complaint is a minor one: the recording quality is inconsistent. There appears to be a different narrator in one chapter, and some passages are repeated. It's nothing too egregious, but it's a little jarring when it happens. Still recommend it, though.

Audible version of book doesn't work!

The reason for my giving a low rating to this book is because this is the 5th Audible book in this wonderful series where the Audible doesn't match with the Kindle written version. I couldn't read along as I like on my Kindle Fire. The recording would stop everytime I attempted to read.. So now I will check my library or do without the Audible. The reader was excellent; I just couldn't follow along.

Best yet

Great story and a good mystery. As always likable characters.

A nice escape from the toils of the day.

Fantastic as always

Would you consider the audio edition of The Rose Rent to be better than the print version?

Now that I have both the print and the audio version, I have to say they are both good, but in different ways.

Any additional comments?

Fantastic series in general, but this is one of my favourite stories from it.

Enjoyable Read

It was a good story. The characters are likable. Narrator did a good job in reading the story.

one of my favorites

Clever and sometimes funny. I wasn't able to guess all of the plot twists.
Sweet ending.

Ellis Peters in top form

This is a repeater. The narrator put me off at first, but she did a first rate job. Sister Magdalen is back with another of her spectacular rescues and Cadfael contrives a happy ending from very little cloth. If you like Cadfael this is a safe bet.

worthy reading of great story

Ellis Peters writes such good stories, along with her mysteries, with excellent background of historical events. I had a bit of a hard time with the voice of the narrator at first, but its pretty hard to compete with Derek Jacobi, so my evaluation was a bit unfair. The narration was fine after that small hurdle.