An epic novel that reads more like a narrated history than an immersive story with flesh-and-blood characters.
In this historical novel set in the last days of Imperial Rome, a senator comes up with a bold plan to keep the barbarian hordes to the north at bay.
In the year 372, the Roman Empire is governed from its two capitals of Rome and Constantinople, and it’s under siege on all sides. Fifty-five-year-old senator Marcus Tarquinii, one of the wealthiest men in Rome, goes to co-emperor Valentinian with an ingenious plan to save the empire by creating an autonomous Roman Federation, which can wage war on the barbarians in the far north—the Vandals, Goths and Franks—and create fortified settlements there. Once the emperor approves this plan, Marcus’ son, Scipio Tarquinii, is declared the governor of the new province of Raetia on the Danube and given several Roman legions with which to implement the scheme. Marcus and Scipio push through their initiative, with allies as diverse as Gaius Drusus, commanding general of the Raetian legions, and Sheik Ali Mustapha, leader of the Saracens and trainer of spies and assassins. But when Valentinian dies, a cabal of generals led by the scheming Merobaudes plots to take the empire away from his heirs. In the end, it’s up to Maeve, a Vandal princess and Scipio’s mistress, to save the day. Overall, this debut novel is as well-researched as a historical work of fiction can possibly be. Unfortunately, its many discourses on the military strategies, politics and economics of the late Roman Empire often read like position papers written by a fourth-century policy wonk. To make matters worse, the novel places this information in the mouths of one-dimensional characters, many of whom are based on historical figures. Unlike Lindsey Davis’ Didius Falco mystery series, which manages to make ancient Rome come alive, this novel smothers its narrative under an avalanche of research.
An epic novel that reads more like a narrated history than an immersive story with flesh-and-blood characters.Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990403838
Page Count: 434
Publisher: Guardian House Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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