Happy Vernal Equinox!

Friday at 18:45 marked the vernal equinox here in Toronto, and my (false) shamrock is catching up with the times and deciding to bloom.

Happy spring!

The Bow of Heaven Trilogy

The Other Alexander: Kindle | paperback
Blood of Eagles: Kindle | paperback
A Mixture of Madness: Kindle | paperback

Over Christmas, I read the Bow of Heaven trilogy by Andrew Levkoff.  (Late review, I know, but things have been hectic!)  The trilogy consists of The Other Alexander, Blood of Eagles, and A Mixture of Madness, all available as Kindle or paperback books (see the links to the right).

The books are, obviously, historical fiction, but they are exceedingly well written for the most part, and I enjoyed them thoroughly.  Even my harsh eye only caught two anachronisms, often a great game for me with historical fiction  (vanilla as a perfume one book, and tobacco being smoked in Parthia in another).  The narrative style takes some liberties with things such as forms of address, but that simply makes the reading far less awkward to modern readers than contemporary writing would have done.

The title character begins as a young student of philosophy, but ends up captured by Sulla's troops during the sack of Athens in the First Mithridatic War.  Taken to Rome, Alexander is given as a gift to Marcus Licinius Crassus, and soon establishes himself within the household of one of history's wealthiest men.  We then see the next thirty years unfold through the eyes of Alexander as he recounts his life and times — and as he struggles to accept his enslavement.

Alexander has a strong voice, and he ruminates on the inhumanity of slavery and war, and he carefully shows us how one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in all of history dies ingloriously on a battlefield far from home in his blind attempt to avenge himself upon a hated foe.  Even though anyone familiar with the history of the end of the Roman republic knows what's going to happen in this tale (in a general way) this is a novel re-telling that is well worth your time.

This book has lending enabled on the Kindle.  If you actually know me and you'd like a loan of it, get in touch.