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I’ve chosen to review these two books as one because it’s become extremely difficult to separate them in my mind. Actually, even separating them from the first book is hard, but I already reviewed that one.
As the Saxons encroach upon British lands, Derfel and Arthur look to Merlin and the gods for help as they devise battle strategies and struggle with the constant feuding of the British lords. An unexpected betrayal leads to unfortunate consequences in this struggle for survival.
I really enjoyed these books. I liked Cornwell’s different take on the Arthurian legend. He uses many of the typical elements, but in interesting and different ways. For example,
(if you’ve read other Arthurian literature, this is not a spoiler, but if you haven’t, stop reading now! Go read some and then come back!)
the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere is handled in a way that I hadn’t expected, and the woman Guinevere reminds me the most of is actually Eleanor of Aquitaine. That may be partly because I’m reading Devil’s Brood by Sharon Kay Penman and Eleanor is in my head right now, but they’re both defiant women who deserve more authority than they are allowed because of their gender. Guinevere is a great character here. It’s easy to both hate her and love her, as Derfel does. Speaking of our narrator, he’s very endearing and I think I like him the best out of the three Cornwell main characters I’ve read about so far. He’s wonderful and his emotions really come out of the page; he’s fully fleshed out and probably too modern, but I love hearing these events through his voice. Arthur is a superb hero while as always a flawed man. Here, it’s easy to care about him, as it should be.
Again, Cornwell excels at what he does: his battles are exciting and intense and the book is at times full of testorone induced warring. Perhaps I’ve got too much because I love to read about these battles. Cornwell makes no effort to stay in line with history since we know so very little, but I think that actually made these books better because they are so full of imagination. These are all legends anyway and it’s hard to follow history when you’re not even sure Arthur existed or that these battles actually happened. His plots race along and these books never slow down. I love the twists in the traditional characters. It felt like I was reading something new that I could connect with stories more than a thousand years old.
In my opinion, this series is brilliantly done. If you like historical fiction, Arthurian legend, or just a great tale, this trilogy is for you. Give the first book 100 pages and you won’t look back. I never did. Buy The Winter King , Enemy of God , or Excalibur on Amazon.
 Cassius has been a slave on the Sweetsmoke plantation since birth – in fact, his owner Hoke Howard even chose his name, and he used to be one of Hoke’s favorites. Used to be because Cassius’s attitude in the past five years has changed drastically, ever since he lost his wife and child. When Emoline Justice, a woman for whom Cassius cared much, is brutally murdered, Cassius realizes that he can no longer stand by and seeks her murderer in an attempt for revenge.
I really enjoyed this book. Mr. Fuller put me right on the plantation with Cassius, and I felt about as much a black slave as I suspect any American white girl ever can. I could feel what Cassius was feeling – the injustice galled me, the constant injustice, and while this normally drives me away from books dealing with slavery, in this case it was executed so well that it made the experience of the book feel more important. One of the most marvelous things about historical fiction is that sometimes it can show us history in a way that a non-fiction work generally cannot do. This is what Fuller does with this book and just for that it can be commended highly.
The author also executed some interesting stylistic choices that added to the feel of the book. Only the speech of the slaves is not marked by quotation marks, even when they are talking to each other. This really underscores how the slaves were considered to be below everyone else; this is a fact that everyone knows, wrong as it is, but the book caused me to feel it with subtle touches like this one. Besides that, Fuller’s dialogue is unusually well done and feels like real speech, which is probably thanks to his history as a screenwriter.
Sweetsmoke‘s plot is also very well done; there are plenty of twists and turns in here. The first 50 or so pages are a slower going than the rest, though, as the story doesn’t really start until Cassius finds out about the murder. As a carpenter, Cassius is a bit freer than the other slaves, which allows him to give us more of a feel for the Civil War era South than a field slave would be able to do. His search for Emoline’s murderer takes him over a fair amount of ground and ends up in a way I certainly didn’t expect, but which makes sense in the end. There is even a little bit of romance in this novel, which adds a nice touch as it both endears us to Cassius and highlights yet another way in which the slaves were unfortunate.
I would certainly recommend this book, especially to those who love historical fiction like I do. In the end, it is a fascinating portrait of the American South, largely through the eyes of a slave, that really allows us to feel what it may have been like to live then. Only by reading books like this one will we make sure that such atrocities are not committed again. Pre-order this book on Amazon. You can also view the website for Sweetsmoke and David Fuller.
 As a little boy, Derfel is accepted into Merlin’s keeping after surviving a Druid’s attempt to kill him. On the Tor, he has a first-hand view of the events that occur as Uther, the old High King, slides into death, and a Council must be chosen to guide the kingdom through his grandson Mordred’s childhood. At the head of the Council is, of course, Arthur, and so another imagining of the Arthurian legend begins. The story is framed by an elderly Derfel, who has converted to Christianity and become a monk. The elderly Derfel is recording the story of his life, and consequently Arthur’s, for posterity and for the entertainment of Igraine, a queen of the Britons.
Cornwell, of course, puts his own spin on things. He uses many of the characters from the oldest Arthurian legends, of which one is Derfel, but freely interposes later creations like Lancelot at will. He’s not trying to imagine the origins of the legend, but put another spin on them, so most of the basic plot is there. Despite that, he changes things, like Lancelot’s character, and then shows how the origins of the later tales may have been totally off-base. In that sense, the book plays on the origin of myths, which I find particularly interesting. He also makes Arthur a warlord, not a king, which I like a lot. Even if Cornwell isn’t trying to create a possible reality, it’s my opinion that the real life Arthur, if he existed, was in fact a warlord, so I’m enjoying this version of the legend with that in mind.
Another aspect of Cornwell’s writing that I always enjoy is that he is very skilled at placing his reader right into the correct time period. This book calls up the fifth century better than any other I’ve read. The Romans have fled, and the Britons and Saxons are at war with each other. The Saxons will inevitably win, as history tells us, but Arthur’s push against them is the Britons’ last stand. In The Winter King, it’s easy to feel the difference between crumbling but beautiful Roman buildings and the cruder British or Saxon wood forts and halls. It’s easy to feel like civilization has fled from these people even as they live among the reminders of it, though Cornwell allows us to also appreciate the fact that the British way of life has been driven out by the Romans. It’s all a fascinating mesh and he places the reader right into the middle of it, like you’re walking alongside the characters. This is one of his greatest strengths. The only problem is that he sometimes introduces anachronisms into the characters’ speech that sometimes jolt me out of the setting. This only happens a few times, but it’s enough that I only gave it four and a half stars on LibraryThing instead of five.
I will admit that I found the first hundred or so pages of this book very boring. Arthur doesn’t appear in them and Derfel, our narrator, is a little boy. I’ve discovered lately that I struggle with many books or movies that have children as their focus (I don’t know why), and so I struggled with the beginning of this one, and dreaded the fact that the entire trilogy was on my TBR pile already. In fact, I could hardly see how this book was going to tie into what I know of the legend at all. When Arthur arrived and Derfel began to grow up, the book snapped into place for me. Pieces of the legend emerged into the picture and I decided I liked Derfel. All of Cornwell’s heroes are similar, but I like them all, so I’m not going to complain. I find I like Derfel more than Uhtred or Thomas of Hookton because he seems more human and because his older incarnation is extremely entertaining.
Most of this book does seem concerned with building up to the main part of the legend. There are aspects of it, but we’re not into the ever-familiar Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere triangle yet. Characters are being built and the groundwork is being laid, but by the end I loved it and headed for book two only a day later despite my ARC TBR pile and the fact that the book ends with a sort of conclusion.
I’ll definitely be recommending this book and I expect I’ll be finishing the trilogy very soon. I love it! Buy this book on Amazon.
 Daughters of a powerful family, Nefertiti and Mutnodjmet know that their lives are quite possibly destined to be remembered, but only Nefertiti will be married to the young Pharaoh Amunhotep. Mutny, her devoted younger sister, serves as her sister’s first handmaiden, but soon begins to resent her position as Amunhotep and Nefertiti begin to see beyond themselves and seize power that is not theirs to grasp. She struggles between love for her sister and a life of her own as Egypt is slowly attacked by foreign armies and corruption from within.
I had this book waiting for a couple of months, which was silly of me because I loved it and should have read it immediately. Mutny is endearing; what she wants is what every woman wants, although her every desire is hampered by her constant need to serve her family, especially Nefertiti. The queen herself sometimes comes across as a spoiled child, beguiled by her husband’s wishes, but it’s easy to see why the people loved her and why she is still remembered.
Nefertiti is also very striking for its beautifully described setting. Reading this book is like sinking into Egypt. I think every historical fiction work should try to show us how it may have been to live then, and this book succeeds, both on the level of the palace and on the level of the commoner. It felt so authentic to me, and when I was away from it I couldn’t wait to get back. You can tell that Michelle Moran loves history because it’s obvious that she’s been to Egypt and poured research, time, and love into this book. I was happy when the afterword proved me right on that score. Nefertiti shines with discreet details and description that simply engross the reader. I particularly liked the descriptions of the makeup; I’ve always wondered how they got that distinctive look that you can see in their art and on sculptures, or if the people even made themselves look that way. Here I could almost see how beautiful Nefertiti was and how they enhanced her beauty.
Moran’s writing is also very good and never jolted me out of the tale, as sometimes happens. She makes it very easy to get lost in the story and to feel that the characters are real and sitting right next to you telling you their story. I can’t wait to learn more about their adventures in her next book.
I definitely recommend this, especially to historical fiction buffs. It does exactly what historical fiction should do, and does it so well that it could be a template. I can’t wait for Moran’s next book, which looks to be released in September! In the meantime, you can buy this book from Amazon. You can also check out Michelle Moran’s website or her blog.
 Lady Mary Elgin, recently married, is swept along by her husband on his quest to claim priceless Greek art from the Ottoman Empire for the British, under the guise of Ambassador, while relying on her fortune to pay the bills. Centuries before, Aspasia is neatly given by her brother-in-law to Greece’s ruler, Perikles. In Stealing Athena, the stories of these two oddly similar women intertwine to form one powerful narrative about women’s struggles in the face of never-ending male oppression, while the great marble statues of Greece are both built and taken apart.
This is how historical fiction narratives should be combined. Both stories are compelling and each time they switched, I regretted the change, only to be happy that the other woman was now featured. I did prefer Mary, in all honesty, but I agree with other reviewers because it seems that the book is more hers than Aspasia’s. She gets a bit more time and it’s easy to feel frustration and sympathy for her. It is also for Aspasia, but Mary’s dilemmas are more numerous and almost more modern day. The stories complemented each other beautifully. In Aspasia’s tale, the Parthenon is being raised, as well as many other great temples. In Mary’s, they are being torn down, supposedly to save them.
In fact, therein lies my biggest problem with the book. It’s a difficult tale to hear. I have issues with British pillaging of ancient treasures, despite the fact that I have only been able to enjoy them in England because of this. It’s hard, as someone who loves history so much, to hear about how these priceless and completely irreplaceable marbles were carelessly handled and damaged by the British. Yes, it would have been horrible if they had been destroyed, but they could have been handled better, and treated better later at the British Museum. (No offense to the British of today, obviously, they’re trying to make up for it.)
The book is well written, and each woman has her own distinctive voice. At times, they echo each other, and they show the universality of female existence; largely, that women have historically had few rights and been totally subservient to men. Each woman thwarts this in her own way, and it shows us that their condition did not actually improve. Stealing Athena is also extremely well-plotted and never drags or gets boring. I never wished for the other woman’s chapter to start. With some expansion, either story could have functioned perfectly well on its own. Instead, they fit together and the book benefits from their shared experiences and the complete circle of the story, from construction to destruction.
I’d highly recommend this book, especially to historical fiction readers, but I think I’d recommend it to others as well. Buy this book on Amazon. I’m now on the lookout for non-fiction about Lady Mary Elgin, so recommend away if you’ve read any! I’ve heard of one book by Susan Nagel, but I’m not sure if there are others.
 Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation books are some of my favorite guilty pleasure reads. They’re the perfect mix of chick lit, historical fiction, and romance. I’m always amused by the modern day Eloise in her struggle to win Colin, the man of her dreams, and I think that her historical discoveries are well-timed. The historical stories are endearing and entertaining, if a bit unrealistic at times. Mostly, I love the way the books never take themselves seriously and always provide a quick, light, cheery read.
Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe is thrilled when the woman he has been chasing for months, Mary Alsworthy, agrees to elope with him. He is not as thrilled when her younger sister Letty turns up instead and is thus compromised, forcing his hand. Angry over the misunderstanding, he flees to Ireland, only for his young bride to follow him as they learn that nothing is quite what it seems, including the nature of the mysterious Black Tulip, while trying to avert a national tragedy.
I read this book in one night, mostly with a smile on my face. I liked both new main characters and Henrietta and Miles from Black Tulip make a comeback appearance. I was particularly fond of Letty here; I liked the way she developed, as well as her blunt personality. The romance was cute, if not entirely believable, and it certainly was enough to leave the reader charmed and happy.
As for the modern day storyline, Eloise is as usual self-deprecating, hilarious, and desperate. I never mind her interruptions in the story, although each time I find myself torn between wanting to hear more about her or about the historical tale. I think that’s a sign that both are written well. Overall, I think this series is a terrific combination of genres. It’s fluff, but it’s well-written, entertaining, worthy fluff, and I’m greatly looking forward to the next Pink Carnation novel, and thrilled to discover that a fifth will be released next year. Buy this book on Amazon.
 Sarah Carrier, a young girl living in 17th century Massachusetts, has always had a hard time relating to her mother Martha. She’s much happier while living with her aunt and cousin, but when the witch hunt comes to her small town, Sarah learns the strength of her mother and the true power of the bond they share.
At first, I found it difficult to relate to Sarah, and I had an extremely hard time imagining that the author was actually going to pull off the type of mother-daughter plot promised in the description of the book. There just didn’t seem much there to work with. To my surprise, she did a creditable job. The bond grew as the story did, and I found myself very much moved by the end.
I wouldn’t call this an absorbing book. I found it fairly easy to put down – it isn’t precisely a gripping story. I appreciated it more for the depth of emotion that it achieved by the end, and for its character relations. I liked how Sarah grew as the book progressed. I would recommend this, especially for historical fiction readers and those interested in the Salem witch trials. Check this book out on Amazon.
In this installment, Uhtred finally manages to journey north in an attempt to take his home, Bebbanburg, back from his uncle, and to kill the murderers of his adopted Danish family. He also goes through some more adventures, most of which he hasn’t expected, but in the end returns to Alfred as it seems he will always do.
This one dragged a little at the beginning, and especially during Uhtred’s time as a slave. It was interesting to see how slaves were used at the time, but mostly it was just depressing and uncomfortable to read. I’ve never liked to read about slavery, although I know how important it is to be aware of its atrocities, it’s just one of my things. On the other hand, this lasted about 100 pages, then Uhtred is reunited with his friends and the story really takes off again.
It was nice to see Uhtred in the north again. I have a particular fondness for the north of England, York in particular, which may be why I’m going to grad school there in the fall, so I’m always happy when it turns up in fiction. Cornwell remains a great writer, his battle scenes especially leaping off the page and feeling real. I enjoyed this book, and when it was over I immediately wanted the next in the series. Unfortunately it’s only available in hardcover, so I’ll be waiting for the paperback. I definitely recommend this entire series!
Interested in this series? Start with The Last Kingdom. If you’re interested in this book, why not check it out on Amazon?
 This was a wonderful book. Ren is a little boy who has spent his life so far at Saint Anthony’s with other orphaned or abandoned boys. Sometimes they’re adopted, sometimes they’re not, and when they aren’t, they are recruited into the army. Ren is different, though, because he is missing one of his hands, and that makes it a challenge for him to be adopted. After a rejection, Ren is “lucky” enough to be adopted by a man who declares himself Ren’s brother. The monks don’t ask many questions and off they go, only for Ren’s happy bubble to evaporate when Benjamin Nab turns out to not be his brother, but a thief who intends to use Ren as bait in his schemes. It’s up to Ren to make the best of his new situation as he searches for his past and a family that will love him the way he deserves.
I really loved this book. Compelling narrative, great characters, interesting and varied settings. This is a little boy’s search to belong, and Ren is a truly wonderful and adaptable boy, with just enough naughty boy in him to make him interesting! I enjoyed watching him interact with everyone else, like the entertaining landlady and Benjamin’s drunken partner Tom. Benjamin Nab is another fascinating character, and only at the end do you realize what a marvelous web the author has been spinning around you the entire time. The plot is well-paced and it’s hard to imagine the outcome, and although parts of it seem like they should have been obvious from the start, they aren’t at all. It’s easy to keep on reading and forget that time has passed because the author’s narrative is so engaging.
In my opinion, this is a book to fall in love with, and I can easily imagine myself reading it over and over again. For once, all the reviews plastered on the cover are entirely correct – this book is enchanting, sweet, clever, absorbing, and haunting. I highly recommend it!
The Good Thief will be released on August 26th. Pre-order this book from Amazon today!
 I love Bernard Cornwell. There is no better way to put it! I have really, really enjoyed every book of his that I’ve read so far. He just captures what I imagine to be the medieval atmosphere so well, and beyond that his books are engaging and engrossing. It’s not a surprise that I’ve basically fallen in love with what I’ve read of the Saxon Chronicles then because I am already fascinated by Anglo-Saxon culture, especially the clashes with Vikings, and that is what this series is all about, featuring some of my favorite historical figures.
This book, the second in the Saxon Chronicles, documents Alfred’s flight into the marshes and his difficult struggle out of it. Uhtred, the Northumbrian lord, finds himself bound to assist Alfred even though he’d rather be a Dane, and thus plays a pivotal (though fictional) role in taking England back for the “English”. In the meantime, he falls out of love with his wife and in love with someone else, explores more of the British Isles, and begins to grow up a little.
Amusingly enough, after that, I don’t know what to say! I always find it harder to review books that I really like. When reading this, I just get swept up in the battle passion of it, perhaps my only glimpse of what it’s like to be a “warrior”, and it’s not all glorious, and maybe that’s what I like best about these books. Cornwell doesn’t bother with romanticizing much of anything, certainly not compared to other historical fiction authors out there. His plot moves along swiftly and the climax of it in this book is terrific and left me so engrossed that I immediately rushed out and bought the next at my first opportunity. I love how his characters are growing and changing, particularly Uhtred, the main character – he grows up right before the reader’s eyes and his experiences change him. Even Alfred changes and learns.
One pitfall remains – the Christians among us may find Cornwell’s derogatory attitude towards early Christians offensive, but I find it useful to remember that Christianity has changed vastly since the 9th century and nothing he says can really apply to today’s Christians.
I definitely recommend this book! There is nothing better, aside from reading period literature, to put you right in the shoes of an Anglo-Saxon. Buy this book from Amazon.
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