Mysteries and Conspiracies: Detective Stories, Spy Novels and the Making of Modern Societies
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The detective story, focused on inquiries, and in its wake the spy novel, built around conspiracies,...
City of Friends
6.0
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City of Friends is the twentieth novel from the highly acclaimed number one bestselling author,...
Fiction
The novel covers the reign of Henry VIII from the point of view of Will Somers, the man who becomes the king's jester or fool. This gives the book a totally different twist and insight from something concentrating on the usual courtly suspects. Will is in the thick of things, with a front row seat in the course of history, if you like, but he's not one of the players in the drama.
The novel is actually written in the first person, and it's very rarely that I like this because in the hands of most authors it is clunky, but here I had to go back and check that this was so, as it seemed so natural.
Obviously, hindsight is a wonderful thing in history and some of the points made are from the point of view of someone with historical hindsight, but there's also a lot of psychological truth in there and you can quite clearly see why characters act the way they do.
Now, my only problem is that MCB was not a writer of authorial afterwords, like many present authors. What I really want to know is how much of the story is true (within the bounds of fictional probability!) and what is fiction/surmise - and what happened to Will Somers next?!
Lies that Blind
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What would you risk to avoid obscurity? Malaya, 1788 Aspiring journalist Jim Lloyd jeopardises...
Historical Fiction
The Feathered Nest (The Thornton Mysteries #4)
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Murder comes to Norfolk Island, but is the killer after Alexandra Archer’s Tahitian black pearl or...
Historical Fiction Historical Mystery Suspense Romance
The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
8.0
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MEET CHARLES IGNATIUS SANCHO: HIS EXTRAORDINARY STORY, HIDDEN FOR THREE HUNDRED YEARS, IS ABOUT TO...
Historical fiction Georgian England Slavery
The Beauty Doctor
Book
"Beauty is power," Dr. Rome told her. "And with enough power, one can achieve anything." ...
Historical Mystery Suspense Edwardian
A Rose In The Blitz (Sisters of War, #1)
Book
Escape into the dramatic world of London during the Blitz in this sweeping family saga of love, war...
Historical Fiction Historical Romance World War II
Deborah (162 KP) rated Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen: Six Tudor Queens 1 in Books
Dec 19, 2018
During the third quarter of the book, we get a lot of Henry coming in to visit Katherine, giving us a bit of plot exposition and then having a strop and stomping out like a child having a tantrum. After about the tenth occurrence this gets rather tedious and doesn't feel altogether likely.
I was slightly weirded by the implication that Katherine on arrival quite fancied the ten year old Henry and the bit in the Tower with the 'ghost lady' and the shivers down the spine in Peterborough cathedral seemed out of place and both only really play off if you have a knowledge of the period already, in which case you really don't need to be reading this.
Finally, for all the historical stuff Weir has stuffed in there, she really does need to pay better attention to her geography. I know Ampthill isn't that far from Dunstable, but I think I little effort would inform her that it's more like 14 miles and not the 4 she has in the book!
While the writing isn't awful, it's just not engaging and the book is far too long and becomes tedious. Does Weir really believe that Katherine believed that, after everything that he had done, Henry would meekly accept the Pope's vastly overdue ruling, put Anne and Elizabeth and the change of a male heir aside along with his leadership of the Church of England? hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I find it hard to beleive that Katherine was as stupid and naive as she comes across here. She says she still loves Henry and wouldn't do anything against him, yet writes to the Pope and the Emperor with a clear intention of inciting war! I think Weir means to make her sympathetic, but I just found her exasperating. I would recommend some good non-fiction book on the period ahead of this.
Uptown Oracle (24 KP) rated Darien in Books
Jun 30, 2017
At times, Darien is a struggle to read. The writing style is complex and full of intricacies. A lot of focus is needed when reading Darien because of this. I often read before bed, but when I'm winding down this is not the right book. Changing POV's kept confusing me because of lack of focus. It's very similar to Lord of the Rings or ASOIAF books in that sense.
What I enjoyed was the characters are not labelled good or bad. They all have both good and bad traits which are shown throughout the book. This gave the characters so much depth. There was the problem that I didn't know who I was routing for though as sometimes the characters were on opposing 'sides' of the conflict.
The character's storylines could have also been more entwined than they were. Although it was nice to see different POV's from each character, often I questioned whether it was necessary for the overarching plot. For example, the old man, Tellius, did we really need his part of the story for the story to make sense? I don't think we needed the background information. For some characters it was just a mention of missing each other at the same place by mere minutes. I would have been more coherent if it was all interlinked somehow.
Overall, Darien was a nice read. Iggulden has used his historical fiction background to ensure descriptive world building and well written politics. There were just some aspects that I personally didn't enjoy as much as others would.