writing – Page 44

Book Review – Catherine of Braganza by Sarah-Beth Watkins (history)

Here’s the blurb;

Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, married Charles II in 1662 and became the merry monarch’s Restoration queen. Yet life for her was not so merry – she put up with the king’s many mistresses and continuous plots to remove her from the throne. She lived through times of war, plague and fire. Catherine’s marriage saw many trials and tribulations including her inability to produce an heir. Yet Charles supported his queen throughout the Restoration, remaining devoted to her no matter what. Outliving her husband, she ended up back in her home country and spent her final days as queen-regent of Portugal.

Although a historian myself, anything after the Tudors does almost defeat me because it’s not a period I’ve studied at great length – and this is probably just the right sort of book for me to read about a time period I know little about.

The author’s tone is light, and dispenses with any sort of discussion about sources and their reliability, rather focusing on what can be pieced together about Charles II’s Queen, which doesn’t seem to be a great deal. It is told in a chronological order – which I always like – and while I would have quite liked a list of Charles II’s mistresses and illegitimate children – Charles does not feature massively in the text. Not that he’s not there – and there are a few times when I was struck by Charles’ regard for his wife, unable to give him the legitimate sons he needed, and yet fiercely loyal to her for all that – apart from perhaps in his younger days when his treatment of her was quite scandalous.

Overall, a very enjoyable and quick read – I especially enjoyed the mentions of the French court as it brought back all my memories of studying Louis XIV. I think it would help to have some understanding of the time period when reading the book – but as I discovered while reading, I did actually know more about the time period than I thought I would.

This is released on 28th April 2017 and you can get a copy here;

Book Review – Betrayal: The Centurions I by Anthony Riches (historical fiction)

Here’s the blurb:

“Rome, AD 68. Nero has committed suicide. One hundred years of imperial rule by the descendants of Julius Caesar has ended, and chaos rules.

His successor Galba dismisses the incorruptible Germans of the Imperial Bodyguard for the crime of loyalty to the dead emperor. Ordering them back to their homeland he releases a Batavi officer from a Roman prison to be their prefect. But Julius Civilis is not the loyal servant of empire that he seems.

Four centurions, two Batavi and two Roman, will be caught up in the intrigues and the battles that follow – as friends, as victims, as leaders and as enemies.

Hramn is First Spear of the Bodyguard. Fiercely proud of his men’s honour, and furious at their disgrace, he leads them back to the Batavi homeland to face an uncertain future.

Alcaeus is a centurion with the tribe’s cohorts serving Rome on the northern frontier – men whose fighting skills prove crucial as Roman vies with Roman for the throne. A wolf-priest of Hercules, he wields the authority of his god and his own fighting prowess.

Marius is a Roman, first spear of the Fifth Legion: a self-made man who hates politics, but cannot avoid them in a year of murderous intrigue.

Aquillius, former first spear of the Eighth Augustan, like Hramn, is in disgrace for refusing to dishonour his oath of loyalty. But their paths will lead them to opposite sides of an unforgiving war.

And Civilis, Kivilaz to his countrymen, heroic leader, Roman citizen and patriotic Batavi, will change both the course of the Empire’s destiny and that of the centurions.”

For a book that’s only 400 pages long, Betrayal by Anthony Riches, took a painful amount of time to read. It is, and perhaps only people who’ve read the book will understand this comment, as hard to read as the struggles his crack Batavi troops endure as they forge rivers in all their armour. This is a huge shame. I can almost understand what the author was trying to achieve with this novel, and perhaps, for those who know the period well it will be a great success, but as a newly come reader to Roman era historical fiction, I found I needed to rely on my very sparse knowledge from other Roman historical fiction books to even have an inkling of what was happening.

Much of this could perhaps be remedied with a few more ‘signposts’ for the reader throughout the text. While the author informs us where the action is taking place, it would have been better to have known who the storyline actually involved. The characters all seem to have a number of different names and the author uses them freely, when in actual fact, they all just needed one name, and probably their title before that name – Centurion, Decurion, Legatus etc etc. In a story with so many characters the author really needs to help the reader by informing them as to who they’re reading about – there were great swathes of this novel when I literally had no idea which character the storyline was about and how it related to the other person I’d just been reading about. Some of this is due to the story being told, and the ‘actual’ events that took place, but much of it is just sloppy storycrafting.

The prologue is almost unreadable – sentences taking up the ENTIRE page on my Kindle and it took me three attempts to get through it. I was relieved when the prologue ended and the real story could get under way, but even that relief didn’t last too long. While the events of the prologue are later seen to have real significance to the storyline, I think they’re mentioned so often, that a ‘flashback’ would have sufficed. There is painstaking detail about the equivalent of a game of football/rugby but on other occasions, the characters somehow appear ‘overnight’ in Italy from Germany with very little explanation as to why, and and then travel back just as quickly. It makes me feel that there either wasn’t enough to make this a complete story, or that the author was trying to achieve too much in one book.

I do not believe that historical fiction should be ‘dumbed’ down so that readers can relate to it but it must be told in a manner that’s understandable to those who know little about it. This is the seventh work of Roman historical fiction I’ve read in as many weeks, and apart from one other (which I also struggled with) it is the one I enjoyed the least and also, understood the least. A real shame as I enjoy intelligent novels about the politics of the time, but this completely defeated me.

Betrayal was released on 9th March 2017 and is available here;

Book Review – Skullsworn by Brian Staveley (fantasy)

Here’s the blurb;

“Brian Staveley’s new standalone returns to the critically acclaimed Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne universe, following a priestess attempting to join the ranks of the God of Death.

Pyrre Lakatur doesn’t like the word skullsworn. It fails to capture the faith and grace, the peace and beauty of her devotion to the God of Death. She is not, to her mind, an assassin, not a murderer–she is a priestess. At least, she will be a priestess if she manages to pass her final trial.

The problem isn’t the killing. Pyrre has been killing and training to kill, studying with some of the most deadly men and women in the world, since she was eight. The problem, strangely, is love. To pass her Trial, Pyrre has ten days to kill the ten people enumerated in an ancient song, including “the one you love / who will not come again.”

Pyrre is not sure she’s ever been in love. If she were a member of a different religious order, a less devoted, disciplined order, she might cheat. The Priests of Ananshael, however, don’t look kindly on cheaters. If Pyrre fails to find someone to love, or fails to kill that someone, they will give her to the god.

Pyrre’s not afraid to die, but she hates to quit, hates to fail, and so, with a month before her trial begins, she returns to the city of her birth, the place where she long ago offered an abusive father to the god and abandoned a battered brother—in the hope of finding love…and ending it on the edge of her sword.”

So I am new to the writing of Brian Staveley and I found this book to be a slog from beginning to end, and in the end, it was only sheer determination that drove me to the end, and not a desire to know the ending of the narrative. The novel felt very much like the hot and muggy climate that the story takes place in, and which the author goes to great pains to constantly describe, it clung to you, the smell, the heat, the sweat, but a good shower and the whole thing was washed clean away with little remaining to remind you of the story.

There are moments in this book when I thought it was fantastic, but they were too short and too few and far between and sadly, were too often stopped abruptly by a complete change of pace by the author, or the ending of a chapter. And, my word, does the author like to ‘world build’. I would have much preferred a style that didn’t involve long and torturous ‘backfill’ when a character did something that the author was unable to explain away. I felt, almost like a bad joke, that if it needed that much explanation then, really, that scene shouldn’t have happened or wasn’t needed.

There were also moments when the plot made no sense whatsoever. There are too many ‘gods’ and too many events that seem ‘forced’. There is no overriding narrative that holds the story together, and the author revels in using language that I’ve never heard of. Repeatedly I had to make use of the dictionary on kindle to understand the words – a strange occurrence as I’ve never had to do this before in any of the many books I’ve read. There are also, and this is a pet peeve, lots of silly sounding names for all the peripheral characters – Gods, people, places.

I very much tried to be open minded about the novel. From my own experience about writing side-stories to an already established universe, I know how hard it can be to find a storyline that doesn’t depend on the other novels – one that truly stands alone – and from what I can gather, I think the author has done this. However, if the novel was intended to inspire me to read more of the ‘world’ that has been created, it has failed. While Pyrre may have been a bold and decisive character, ultimately, I found her to be too ‘little’. There was little to love there, in fact, the characters who surround Pyree are far better – perhaps because we don’t constantly have to listen to their self-doubt – Ruc Lan Lac, Kossal and Ela. They might be more one-dimensional – but they are easier to connect to and understand.

Yet, I still give the novel 4 stars – mainly because it is so detailed and confident in itself and I’m sure that fans of the series will love it.

And you can buy it here from April 25th 2017;

Book Review – Alice and the Assassin by R J Koreto

Here’s the blurb;

“In 1902 New York, Alice Roosevelt, the bright, passionate, and wildly unconventional daughter of newly sworn-in President Theodore Roosevelt, is placed under the supervision of Secret Service Agent Joseph St. Clair, ex-cowboy and veteran of the Rough Riders. St. Clair quickly learns that half his job is helping Alice roll cigarettes and escorting her to bookies, but matters grow even more difficult when Alice takes it upon herself to investigate a recent political killing–the assassination of former president William McKinley.

Concerned for her father’s safety, Alice seeks explanations for the many unanswered questions about the avowed anarchist responsible for McKinley’s death. In her quest, Alice drags St. Clair from grim Bowery bars to the elegant parlors of New York’s ruling class, from the haunts of the Chinese secret societies to the magnificent new University Club, all while embarking on a tentative romance with a family friend, the son of a prominent local household.

And while Alice, forced to challenge those who would stop at nothing in their greed for money and power, considers her uncertain future, St. Clair must come to terms with his own past in Alice and the Assassin, the first in R. J. Koreto’s riveting new historical mystery series.”

I loved this book. From the first page you’re expertly drawn into New York in 1902 by the two main characters – Miss Alice Roosevelt – a very feisty 17 year old who speaks her mind, says the odd naughty word and lets no one get in her way because she is the President’s daughter, and Mr St Clair, an old (but not that old) soldier, lawman and rancher who is now her Secret Service Agent in light of the previous President’s assassination.

Immediately the reader is drawn into a possible conspiracy regarding the previous President’s assassination which no one, other than Miss Alice, thinks needs investigating and which only gets bigger as Alice and St Clair discover more and more, by calling on contacts and following up each and every lead they’re presented with. They visit the Italian district, the Chinese district, the docklands, the jail and the odd nice restaurant, as well as travelling on the ‘elevated’.

The storyline evolves at a good pace, the chapters are quite short and by the time you reach the end of the novel you might well have worked out who it is a little bit before Miss Alice, but other than that, you will have been kept guessing and wondering whether she’s making more of something than she should, to just relieve the boredom of her, and Mr St Clair’s days.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and very much appreciated the author’s efforts to describe old New York. I hope there are more books in this series.

This book is due for release in April 2017, and in the meantime you can preorder a copy here,

Book Review – Blood Forest by Geraint Jones (historical fiction) Highly Recommended

Here’s the blurb:

“Gladiator meets Full Metal Jacket in Geraint Jones’ spectacular debut Blood Forest, where honour and duty, legions and tribes clash in bloody, heart-breaking glory.

It is AD 9. In Northern Europe an army is dying, and an empire is being brought to its knees.

The Roman Empire is at the height of its power. Rome’s soldiers brutally enforce imperial rule, and its legions are the most efficient and aggressive fighting force in the world. Governor Varus leads 15,000 seasoned legionnaires north to subdue the Germanic tribes. To Rome these people are savages, ripe for conquest. But the Romans know little of this densely forested territory governed by fiercely independent chieftains. Rome’s supposed ally, Arminius, has unified the disgruntled tribes, leading the would-be conquerors towards a deadly trap. As the army marches deeper into enemy territory, one small band of soldiers must face the deadliest of foes, alone.”

I must first make two things very clear 1) I don't like Ancient Rome/the Romans and I have no interest in studying it because I'm an Anglo-Saxonist 2) I tried to give this book a 4 star but I've had to give it a 5.

I am, I must confess, conflicted by those two points above! However, for all that I don't like books on Ancient Rome or the Romans (to me the Romans are all about sandals and skirts - and sandals are mentioned quite a few time) this story by Geraint Jones is stunning. I devoured it in two days and the reason I've opted for the 5 star is because the storyline infected my dreams last night and that means it's had a big impact on me. In case you want to know, it was the cover and the title that made me want to read the book.

I can not, and won't, attest to any historical accuracy in this story. As I said, I'm not a Roman historian however, the majority of this novel is about a small group of men, in a much larger army, and the events take place so far from Rome that the whole Roman 'thing' isn't actually all that important. This is a story of men, battle and comradeship, and perhaps, honour. It is very brutal, it is filled with foul language and hideous images of death and the dying.

The author manages to avoid stereotyping his Roman soldiers, and all of the 'main' small group (Felix, Titus, Moon, Rufus, Chicken, Micon, Cnaeus and Pavo) have something to add to the story. It is told in the first person - which makes for a quick and easy read anyway - but our main character - whose name we only find out very late on in the novel and who we must call 'Felix' as the rest of the cast do - is an intriguing, if conflicted individual. And to be honest, most of the soldiers are conflicted - in the descriptions of the way the men deal with the violent conflict they find themselves in - the author spares nothing in allowing them to be twisted and changed by the many violent actions they've taken part in, or are forced to take part in, and while we may deplore their acts with our more modern sensibilities - so much of this novel is life and death that we too end up accepting what they're doing.

The reader might not like all of the men, I don't think we're meant to, but that means that we can respect the actions they take.

Even if you don't like Roman historical fiction, I would still recommend this novel to you. The writing style is fresh, the battle scenes well told so that even though there are many battle scenes, they never feel repetitive, and although I think the weakest part of the novel might well be its ending, when all the secrets and lies are exposed about the truth of the men making the decisions for the army that Felix and his comrades are a member of, I would still be interested in reading more about Felix.

This book is available to buy from April 9th 2017.

Book Review – Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (Highly recommended ) fantasy

Here’s the blurb;

It’s not until you’re broken that you find your sharpest edge

A brilliant new series from the bestselling author of PRINCE OF THORNS.

“I was born for killing – the gods made me to ruin”

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.”

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence is a stunning book – I can’t deny that – initially I wanted to hold with a four star review but I’ve changed it to a five star because it is that good, and while I have reservations about it from my view point of a fan of his two previous trilogies (completely unrelated to this book – although the previous two are related to each other (remember that when you finish reading this book)), that’s hardly the fault of this book.

Where to begin – Mark Lawrence never starts a book with endless world building – neither does he stick it down your throat about two or three chapters in – in fact he is elusive to it being almost frustrating about the visions he has in his head. This is a compliment. World building – so beloved of all fantasy authors (so it seems) often gives me a bit of a headache because it is so tediously done. Honestly, I’m not that interested in how magic systems work/religious sects organise themselves – if the story works and its believable then I’m happy. (Lawrence does provide a detailed explanation of all of this at the very beginning – but it’s not part of the text of the story and because I love surprises, I didn’t read it and still haven’t, it made me think he finds world building in the main text as tedious as I do and decided to get it over and done with in one foul-swoop).

In Red Sister, Lawrence has envisaged something new, and also, eminently relatable. This is frustrating – when he does ‘new’ it’s great but sometimes he falls back onto more conventional fantasy ideas and sometimes I want to beat him for being a little bit lazy, almost as though it’s all been a bit too much and he’s had to incorporate something into the text that is easy, and already ‘known’ by those who read fantasy. As such there are painful parts of the text which are too much like Harry Potter ( a lot too much like Harry Potter), and there are brilliant parts where his four ‘races’ – so different to elves, dwarves, orcs and dragons – speak for a level of imagination that few others can employ. The ending – so shocking to many in other reviews – was signposted a little along the way if you just looked – and the narrative – while brilliantly done – does tend to dwell on the day to day life of little more than a child at school.

There are flashes of that old Lawrence from his first two trilogies – the witty speech of Jalan and his self-obsessed nature – and the brutality of Jorg – but they are only flashes and I think that other fans of his work will be left feeling the same way I do – not hard done by – but surprised – like, constantly surprised – that he could have changed his style so much. I have hopes that Nona might become as foul mouthed as his first two main characters – but she’s at a convent so I might be reaching a little too far.

This story will, however, win Lawrence a whole host of new fans – I don’t know where they’ll go from Red Sister, apart from onto the sequels, because I’m not totally convinced that they will appreciate Jorg and Jalan. Neither am I trying to imply that Lawrence has sold out for a bigger audience – the book is still brilliant – it is worth a read – it’s an easy book to like and an even easier book to read – but, well … just but really. It’s weird to feel the way I do after a five star book – I think that really I was hoping for a little ‘more’ perhaps a book worthy of a 6/5!!

And you can buy it from April 6th here –

Book Review – The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton by J. T. Herbert Baily (history)

Here’s the blurb;

Emma, Lady Hamilton, is best remembered as the mistress of Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and the muse of English painter George Romney.

In The Life of Lady Hamilton, J. T. Herbert Baily traces the life of Lady Hamilton, born in 1765 to a blacksmith and christened Amy Lyon, along its startling rise to the upper echelons of English society and power.

Disputing other reports of Emma’s early life that depict her working as a model and dancer for charlatan James Graham’s ‘Temple of Health’, Baily depicts a young girl whose early falterings give way to later strength.

Losing her virtue at a young age, with a child to show for it, Emma swiftly came under the protective wing of Charles Greville, who installed her in a home in London and paid particular attention to her education, introducing her to music and art and improving her command of language such that she was in no danger of embarrassing herself — or, more importantly, him — when in Society.

For Emma herself, life with Greville was more than she ever dreamed, and a deep and abiding love for her protector blinded her to any realistic understanding of the future of their relationship.

Greville’s financial difficulties, Baily explains, led to his need to cast off Emma — through an underhanded scheme that delivered her into the hands of his uncle, Sir William Hamilton.

Devastated, Emma initially refused Hamilton’s overtures, but eventually became his mistress, and in time his wife.

Yet her relationship with Hamilton, and even Greville before him, paled in comparison with her passion for Nelson, and his for her.

Though both were married, they secretly carried on an affair that produced a daughter and lasted until the day of Nelson’s death, from which Emma never truly recovered.

James Thomas Herbert Baily (1865-1914) wrote several biographical works and also served as the editor of The Connoisseur, a British magazine for collectors.

Albion Press is an independent ebook publisher of classic books that have fallen out of print but deserve to be read once again. And indeed this biography of Emma, Lady Hamilton, should be as much interest to the reader for its content and writing style, as the object of its subject.

The book was written in the early 1900’s, by someone who clearly professed a great deal of respect and admiration for Lady Hamilton, and perhaps found it a little difficult to reconcile it with the more stringent mores of the early Twentieth Century. When reading the work, which is quaint and relies quite heavily on the actual texts of letter that Lady Hamilton wrote during her life, it is quite sobering to think that the author knew nothing of the two World Wars, or the vast advances in technology which have since overtaken the world, or even of the advance of Women’s Right, or of the more demanding rigours now required of a work of historical biography. There is no discussion of source material and at one point the author does make an assumption that the reader knows all about Nelson and the battles he commanded, which I think is no longer in the social consciousness of most people, swept away by the politics and war of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.

However, the book is still worth a read for those who are interested in Lady Hamilton for both general interest and for those interested in the study of how women have been variously catalogued throughout history, and perhaps for those interested in the study of the Twentieth Century. Much current historical thought has its basis in the scholarship of the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century and without their efforts history as we know it would not exist. For all it’s antique style, and flaws, this book is thoroughly enjoyable and only gets a three star review not because of its content and writing style but because of its age!

And you can buy a copy here;

Book Review – Eagles in the Storm by Ben Kane (historical fiction)

Here’s the blurb;

“Arminius has been defeated, one of the three eagles has been recovered, and thousands of German tribesmen slain. Yet these successes aren’t nearly enough for senior centurion Lucius Tullus. Not until Arminius is dead, his old legion’s eagle liberated and the enemy tribes completely vanquished will he rest. But Arminius is still at large, devious, fearless and burning for revenge of his own. Charismatic as ever, he raises another large tribal army, which will harry the Romans the length and breadth of the land. Into this cauldron of bloodshed, danger and treachery, Tullus must go – alone. His mission – to find and bring back his legion’s eagle – will place him in more danger than he has ever faced before. Can he succeed? Can he even survive?”

This is only the third book about the Roman Empire that I’ve read, and bizarrely, one of the other one’s (read in the last two weeks) begins where Ben Kane has clearly started his trilogy that ends with Eagles in the Storm. That’s a long way of saying that even though I’ve not read the two other books in this series, I have some idea of the storyline that Ben Kane has been writing about, and while it’s probably not necessary, as there are more than enough illusions to the previous 2 books in this one, it meant that I was very comfortable and could enjoy this book without worrying that I was missing out on back story.

The story is mainly told from three different viewpoints – Tullus, a Roman Army Veteran, Arminius, the enemy of the Romans and Piso, one of Tullus’ soldiers.

Tullus is an honourable soldier, bedevilled by the events that happened in AD9 when his men, under the command of Varus, were annihilated by the traitor Areminius, the Eagle of his Legion stolen, leaving him carrying the burden of revenge ever since.

Aremenius, the chieftain who masterminded the events of AD9, has been striving to keep the disparate tribes of his homeland united against the Romans ever since, and the previous year (AD15) saw him suffer a setback that he wishes to overcome with a new campaign against the Romans. This is pretty hard to organise, as the chieftains he needs to convince are not easily swayed, because they seem to spend much of their time a little bit too drunk!.

Piso, one of Tullus’ soldiers, provides the view point of a ‘normal’ soldier in the Roman army.

While I can’t attest to the historical accuracy, because I’ve never studied this time period, I found this to be a very enjoyable story, if a little too obsessed with the need for the men to ‘pee and poo’ (I’m using polite words here) while on the march, or while fighting. This is essentially a book about men but then, it’s a story of soldiers and I assume that the Roman’s perhaps didn’t invite women into the ranks.

The pacing of the book is good, there is a slight wrinkle near the end, but in the end everything ends as it needs to, and as it should. So yes, it’s a little bit predictable, but hey ho, it’s still a fun read and I’ve already downloaded the two ‘shorts’ that Ben Kane has written to accompany the trilogy.

This book is released on 23rd March 2017 and can be purchased from here:

I’m reviewing My Name is Victoria by Lucy Wolsey #bookreview #histfic

Here’s the blurb

“‘You are my sister now,’ Victoria said, quietly and solemnly. ‘Never forget it. I love you like a sister, and you are my only friend in all the world.’ Miss V. Conroy is good at keeping secrets. She likes to sit as quiet as a mouse, neat and discreet. But when her father sends her to Kensington Palace to become the companion to Princess Victoria, Miss V soon finds that she can no longer remain in the shadows. Miss V’s father has devised a strict set of rules for the young princess, which he calls the Kensington System. It governs her behaviour and keeps her locked away from the world. He says it is for the princess’s safety, but Victoria herself is convinced that it is to keep her lonely, and unhappy. Torn between loyalty to her father and her growing friendship with the wilful and passionate Victoria, Miss V has a decision to make: to continue in silence, or to speak out. By turns thrilling, dramatic and touching, this is the story of Queen Victoria’s childhood as you’ve never heard it before.”

Cover image for My Name is Victoria by Lucy Worsley

My Review

First things first, I loved this book. Okay, I loved 90% of this book. It was a thoroughly enjoyable novel, a fascinating insight into the early years of Princess Victoria and an exceptionally well-researched novel. If anyone has read the Lady Grace Mysteries set in the first Elizabethan England I would recommend this story to them.

The first half of the story follows the exploits of the young Princess and her friend Miss V. at the age of about 11. This part of the story is long and detailed, but that’s no bad thing because the second half of the novel is somewhat faster paced and follows the two girls between the ages of about 16 and 18.

The author manages to portray the enemy of the story, Miss V’s father, Sir John Conroy, in both a sympathetic and a cruel way, highlighting his meanness and ambitions for his future, while also showing him as an almost loving father to his daughter, Miss V. It is only near the end of the novel that his ambitious nature makes it almost impossible to like the man anymore.

Princess Victoria’s mother is a shadowy character who is hardly ever seen, and it’s the nurse and the governess who populate the majority of the story, along with their dog, Dash, and poor old Princess Sophia, at least until near the end of the story when a few German princes make an appearance. And it was from here on that I disliked the story. I genuinely can appreciate the author’s intentions in making some changes to the accepted story, but the more I think about them, the more I think that it’s just a reach too far to expect the reader to accept the changes. Almost like Alison Weir with her fictional books on Elizabeth I, I found the changes to undermine my own, previous, appreciation of the ‘historical personage’ and it went too much against what I was expecting to be easy to accept and quite frankly, it annoyed me a little.

Still, if I can forget that, I must applaud the author for this attempt to portray the early years of Princess Victoria. This is a fascinating and enjoyable account and I would recommend it.

Book Review – Oswald: Return of the Kingby Edoardo Albert (historical fiction)

Here’s the blurb:

“The exiled family of King Aethelfrith of Northumbria arrive, after much hardship, on the island of Iona, where the monastery founded by St Columba has become a centre of worship and learning. Young Oswald becomes firm friends with a novice, Aidan. When Aidan professes his final vows, Oswald and his little brother Oswy are received into the church. As befits a young prince, Oswald learns to fight. However, Aidan’s example attacts him and he is on the point of deciding to become a monk when news reaches Iona that his half brother, Eanfrith, has been killed by Cadwallon, the king who defeated Edwin. Oswald sails back to Northumbria and meets Cadwallon in battle, defeating and killing him. Oswald, now undisputed king of Northumbria, gives Aidan the island of Lindisfarne as his base. But Penda, the last great pagan king in England, is raising troops against him.”

I received a free E-Arc from Netgalley.

Oswald, Return of the King is the first book I’ve read by the author.

Oswald is, unfortunately, a dense read that suffers with some pacing issues, but more than anything, is plagued by unnecessary and near constant Bible quotations. It would perhaps, have been better if the novel had been named after the monks of Lindisfarne or Iona, because the focus of the novel is not actually Oswald. The author has made great use of the work of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, (as must everyone who writes and studies about this time period), and I couldn’t help thinking that Bede would have been overjoyed by the author’s firm adherence to his ideas – to write a history of the Church – and not a history of the people throughout this period, but for myself, I felt that this detracted from what should have been an exiting read and instead descended into a long and tedious story about a highly fictionalised accounting of how Christianity was introduced to the Saxons of England. Christianity was a weapon, just like a warrior’s sword, shield and spear, but the author, writing for a Christian Press, makes no reference to the political nature of the imposition of Christianity.

As to the story itself, Oswald does not become King of Bernicia until 48% of the book has passed, and then there is some definite fudging of events and dates which takes the reader to the final battle – or should I say ‘finally a battle’. Until this point much has been made of the amassing of troops – but the Battle of Heavenfield, where Oswald gains his kingdom, is a disappointing fight between two men in a quarry, an amassing of troops at York slithers away as a truce is called, and Maserfield is the only battle that gets any ink – even the supposed overthrow of the Gododdin earns no more than the recall of a messenger reporting to his king.

This period of history is defined by its battles and its warriors, but this is a novel of saints and Christianity, and needs to be read with a clear understanding of what it is, and not what it could have been, or what a reader might well expect it to be.

The cover is, however, stunning!

And you can buy it here: