New Release – Page 60

Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence – Book Review – released today in the UK 4th April 2019

Here’s the blurb;

“Nona Grey’s story reaches its shattering conclusion in the third instalment of Book of the Ancestor.

THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WOMAN.

The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor’s armies are in retreat.

Nona faces the final challenges that must be overcome if she is to become a full sister in the order of her choice. But it seems unlikely that Nona and her friends will have time to earn a nun’s habit before war is on their doorstep.

Even a warrior like Nona cannot hope to turn the tide of war.
The shiphearts offer strength that she might use to protect those she loves, but it’s a power that corrupts. A final battle is coming in which she will be torn between friends, unable to save them all. A battle in which her own demons will try to unmake her.

A battle in which hearts will be broken, lovers lost, thrones burned.

HOLY SISTER completes the Book of the Ancestor trilogy that began with RED SISTER and GREY SISTER. A ground-breaking series, it has established Mark Lawrence as one of the most exciting new voices in modern speculative fiction.”

Holy Sister is a satisfying conclusion to the Book of the Ancestor Trilogy. For other authors, I would have found that acceptable, but for Mark Lawrence, I confess, I was a bit disappointed.
As with the ending of the previous two trilogies, especially Jalan’s, I’m left wishing there had just been ‘more’.
The concurrent storylines are not without excitement, indeed from about 50-80% the storyline is extremely exciting, but to get there I had to wade through the first 35% and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped I would. Yes, a year has passed since I read the previous book, and I had forgotten much, but even so, and especially considering the ‘summation’ at the beginning, I feel I should have been able to grab the characters and events far more quickly. For readers who can just plough on through all 3 books one after another, I’m sure this won’t be a problem but I’m far too impatient to have actually waited for the end of the trilogy.
And the eventual ending, well. It was somewhat anti-climatic.
If this was merely a coming of age story, then I would say the job had been accomplished very well, but it was always more than that, and sadly, Book 3 doesn’t quite do justice to the characters.
I appreciate that there are many who love this book – I’ve been seeing 5-star reviews flying around for Holy Sister for about 6 months. It might just be that, for me, the book suffers from too much hype, and so I would like to apologise to the author if my comments seem too harsh. It’s truly not the author’s fault when something gets blown out of all proportion.
The majority of people will love this book – and I’m excited for Mark Lawrence because that means he’ll get to write more and more books, and share his wonderful ideas with a wider and wider audience.
I think we will get to return to the world of the Book of the Ancestor, and I look forward to that. Perhaps then all my unanswered questions will find answers. Although I doubt it. Mark Lawrence is a sly old fox for a good reason!
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an E-Arc. I confess, there may have been a squeal of delight.

Holy Sister is released in the UK today in hardback, ebook and audiobook and you can purchase it here (other retailers are also available). I give it a 4/5;

Saxon England as envisaged in 1695 – why I use old maps when writing my Saxon stories – the battle of Brunanburh, Northampton and the Welsh borders

We all know that I’m a little obsessed with old maps. They’re so very helpful when trying to reconstruct Saxon England. There are a collection of maps I often use, the John Speed maps of the early 1600s, which are English county maps, often with a small cut out in the corners, of important settlements at the time. When I was writing about Northampton, the John Speed map for the settlement fitted just about perfectly with the archaeological research that’s been conducted on the remains of the Saxon settlements. I find them very helpful for a sense of scale, and how they might have ‘sat’ in the surroundings. Modern maps don’t quite give the same sense, because they’re very busy with later building work and settlements.

But below is a fascinating map, dated from 1695, which reflects what was thought about Saxon England at that date.

The reason that I love this map is because if you look really close, you can see the name Brunanburh, close to Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) on the north east coast.

This is particularly intriguing. As I’ve said elsewhere, there’s been more discussion about where the battle of Brunanburh took place as opposed to its actual significance. The current thinking is that it quite probably took place on the Wirral, and so to the west of the country and not the north east at all. But, the logic for placing the battle close to the boundary with what would become Scotland works on a very English-centric view. The enemies of Athelstan were the kings of the Scots and of Strathclyde, along with the Norse of Dublin, who hoped to regain the powerful Jorvik, or York. Why then fight on the Wirral when they were powerful elsewhere?

It might be a little easier to see on the image above as opposed to on the map I have. Using old maps, before much of the infrastructure we now have, is a bit like peeling back the layers of soil in an archaeological dig. I find them so helpful, and I guess I am lucky that my Dad is a ‘map man’ and I can call him, with my very strange requests and he can send me back images of exactly what I want.

Another map I’m lucky to have my hands on is one from an 1809 printing of Richard of Cirencester’s Description of Britain. This contains a map of Roman Britain, and the roads that were then believed to have existed.

I’m hoping to use it to give me an idea of how the border region with Wales might have been connected, but it is proving a little stubborn, as many of the roads are thought to be ‘possible.’ So, old maps don’t tell you everything you want to know:)

If you’re interested in old maps, have a look on eBay and places like that, where copies are often available for sale quite cheaply. You can also get a book with all the John Speed county maps reproduced in it, and of course, there is David Hill’s An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England that is invaluable, if you’re lucky enough to find a copy, as it has been out of print for some time.