Before I write anything else about this book I have to say one thing. If you pick it up and dive straight into the first chapter it may not make any sense at all to the reader. Prior to the first chapter there is a African folktale, if you don't read it, the book may take a while to figure out.
Alternate chapters are told by Laura Byrd and the inhabitants of "the City". The inhabitants of the "City" soon discover that they have something in common. As I have put, if you don't read the folk tale first, the concept of the book could escape you.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. The final pages of the book leave the reader wondering what will happen "next".
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400095957
Labels: Kevin Brockmeier, literary fiction
This book started very slowly, and to be honest I was beginning to wonder if I should have another book "on the go", however, the book got interesting . So this is definitely a "stick with it, it's worth it" book, in my eyes anyway.
Set in the 1700s we follow the life of Emilie Selden, through her own eyes. As always with a first person narrator, they disagree with other characters when they oppose them. After all it is only human nature, so Emilie is a good narrator from her point of view, but unreliable from the the reader's point of view.
Emilie is a very strong willed young woman in a time when the patriarchal society was strong. She could be said to be ahead of her time.
for a link to bumph from the book, etc
http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/HB-35524/The-Alchemist
I would be inclined to look for moreof Katherine McMahon's boooks
Labels: historical fiction, Katherine McMahon
AD 57: Caradoc is lost for ever, betrayed to Rome and exiled in Gaul, leaving Boudica bereft, to lead the tribes of the west in an increasingly bloody resistance against Roman occupation.
Only if she can drive Rome from the land will she find the peace she needs and to do that she must once again raise the tribes of the east. But her people, the Eceni, languish in the shadow of the Legions, led by a man who proclaims himself king and yet allows slavers to trade freely in his lands.
Across the sea, Boudica's half-brother has been named traitor by both sides. He, too, seeks peace, on a journey that takes him from the dreaming tombs of the ancestors to the cave of a god he no longer serves.
Only if these two meet can their people - and all of Britannia - be saved. But the new Governor has been ordered to subdue the tribes or die in the attempt, and he has twenty thousand legionnaires ready to stop anyone, however determined, from bringing Britain to the edge of revolt...
What can I say? Manda Scott is brilliant!! She's taken what little we know of the historical figure that is Boudica and masterfully woven a back-story that breathes live into the Celts of first century. Only the fourth book in this series contains what we know of this Warrior Queen of early Britannia, and much of that is courtesy of a Roman historian, yet Scott is able to draw from that and bring this woman to life on so many different levels. Scott reminds us that Boudica was not only a Warrior Queen but a mother and a lover as well. She struggled with self-doubt, but in the end she overcame all to lead the greatest uprising against Rome that had ever been witnessed.
As the third book opens, Breaca (the Boudica) has been spending time alone wandering the western hills attacking Roman garrisons at will. When word is received that her sister, leader of the Eceni has died, she decides it is time to return to her people. All those important in Breaca's life make the journey with her, including her estranged children, Graine, Cygfa and Cunomar.
Through the physical journey comes the emotional/spiritual journey of not only Breaca, but her children as well: Graine the dreamer as powerful as any on Mona, Cygfa the warrior so much like her father Caradoc and the only son, Cunomar who wants nothing more than to follow in his mother's footsteps but has yet to become a man.
Scott brings all of their lives to a complex climax setting the stage for the final book and the final assault on Roman presence in their beloved land. See the author's website here: Manda Scott
Labels: historical fiction
I have read several of Margaret Atwood's books, and this one didn't disappoint.
Although it is one of Atwood's older books it was still a good page turner
I quite liked this book, although not as much as some of Atwood's more recent books.
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth03C18N39051263524