Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors

Conn Iggulden is one of the best authors of historical fiction alive. When he works hard at it, his narratives are riveting and highly enjoyable. The trouble is that he writes series of historical novels, and although he will work hard on the first one, the sequels are much less artfully conceived. Ravenspur is the fourth in the series, and he's obviously bored of it now. There's an none of the colour and drama that make his best writing so electrifying. I couldn't finish it.

With all the main characters being named either Edward, Richard or Henry. This in combination with the old tried and trusted "scene switching" style has ment the author has had to spend a lot of effort setting the context when switching between story lines, because the characters name is not sufficient to identify who we're reading about. This means less column inches has gone into engaging the reader with the story. As a result the normally gripping action sequences have gone off the boil. Sorry Conn :-( 2

The series needed this book. All things must come to an end. Everything has led to these events... and unless you don't know English history, you won't realize how important this ending is. I was so sad when I finished the final pages. I wanted much more. But that's what the Internet is for! And history itself! Thank you Conn for opening my eyes to this Era of western civilization. Great read overall. I do not regret one minute I spent reading this series.