Rating: WARTY!
Not to be confused with William Johnstone's Dreams of Eagles!
I could not get into this book at all, so I don't know how much value this will be - it's not so much a review as an opinion about writing! After I realized I was never going to read this, which was shortly after I began reading it, I went out to look at some reviews of people I follow, and others, and I quickly realized my initial impressions were right. I wasn't going to like this, and since it's almost five hundred pages, I also wasn't going to read this when there is so much else out there which is not only just begging to be read, but which is also willing to offer me a square deal as a reader. I do have an audio book by this author on a different topic, so I will revisit her and see if she can engage me with that.
I was interested in this because it's about Boudicca (change the 'u' to an 'a', and the second 'c' to an 'e' - easily done when writing by hand - and you have 'Boadicea') who has long been of interest to me because I don't think any writer has depicted her as anything other than a gallant 'warrior woman', when really she was nothing more than a terrorist. She may have felt good reason to lay waste to several cities, but the bottom line is that she simply went on a rampage because the Romans pissed her off, and she mercilessly slaughtered literally thousands of men, women, and children for no reason (like there ever is a reason other than insanity for such actions), including thousands of her fellow Britons. She probably wiped out more Britons than ever she did Romans. Se was such a poor warrior that an inferior, but well-organized force of Romans wiped out her hoard of barbarians, and brought peace back to a country which she had thrown into terror and turmoil by her intemperate and precipitate actions.
The name, Boudica, is mentioned only five times in this entire book! She has been known by many names, but the one used here is one I've never encountered before: Breaca? Whence that came I have no idea, but it appears (as Breaca nic Graine) only in this novel to my knowledge, and when I began reading this, I started to think this was not about Boudicca, but about her ancestors, and she wouldn't show up until volume two, until I realized that Breaca was in fact Boudicca. Yes, this is a series, and I am not a fan of series, which was another good reason to abandon this before it gets any worse.
If the first volume is so unappealing, I sure am not interested in reading another three five-hundred page (or whatever) novels after this one! And this volume was so diffuse and wandering and ethereal that it was entirely unappealing to me. Plus it's complete fiction of course, with very little history. Admittedly facts are hard to come by in this case, but we do know of the life these people led, to some extent, and I saw very little of it here, the author preferring to meander off into occultism and dreaming. We could have been reading about American Indians instead of the Iceni people.
I really don't get what it is about historical fiction writers that drives them to produce massive tomes and then sequels to those massive tomes. Of course it's very lucrative, isn't it, if you can suck (or sucker) your readers in and addict them to endless derivative volumes? Publishers love authors who do that. As for me, I prefer authors who write for their readers, and not so much their bank balance, and I think this author would have served her readers better with one volume, cutting out all the extraneous ethereal nonsense and focused on the known facts.
The problem of course with that, is that the facts are few when it comes to Boudicca. Almost nothing is known about her other than her crazed rampage. It's not even known how she died or where her final battle was (although one possible site is quite close to where I grew up, amusingly enough!). There is a rumor that she's buried on platform 9¾! I am not kidding. I wonder if this is why Rowling chose that location for her Potter series, because one rumor has it that Boudicca is buried between platforms nine and ten at what is now King's Cross station in London. This burial is doubtful, though!
We know nothing about her before and after the rampage. Her real name? Boudicca means the same as Victoria - victory. It probably was no more her real name than is Breaca nic Graine! The names of her daughters? Unknown, although there are wild guesses at them. Where she died? Unknown, Where she's buried? Unknown. My guess is that she died at what's known as the Battle of Watling Street, and was left along with the thousands of other corpses to rot. Find the battle site, you'll find her. It's possible that her surviving supporters returned later and buried her, but the chances are that those who knew her died with her and no one else would know her well enough to recognize her body.
So based on what I saw of this novel and the portion I read, I can't recommend it. You'll have to read someone else's review to get a better overview of this one than I can offer though.
