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A review by zena_ryder
The Eagle and the Raven by Pauline Gedge
5.0
I loved this book. The characters are complex and well drawn, and ancient Britain under the Romans is very well described. Without turning the Romans into evil caricatures, Gedge does a brilliant job of motivating the urge for rebellion. Personal relationships, even of some of the relatively minor characters, are completely believable and very moving. She also handles the magical beliefs of the Britons very well. You can get into their skin and see it as they see it, without the author injecting real magic into the story.
Two things to bear in mind if you consider reading this book, so that you won’t be disappointed. One is that — despite the description on the cover of my edition — most of the book is not focused on Boudicca. It is about ancient Britain more generally, with other tribal leaders (first Caradoc and then Venutius) occupying most of the book. The second is that the book is long. (My edition has 744 pages of small type and it took me two months to read!) It isn’t too long — there are no extraneous scenes or plot lines — but I do recommend reading it when you know you’ll be able to dedicate the time to enjoy it fully. It’s also dense, with many characters and lots of detail, so it’s best read in long sections, rather than in little snippets.
I checked what is known about the history and it seems that, at least in broad strokes, the book is historically accurate.
My only criticism of the book is that I wish that my edition had had a map of ancient Britain. Obviously these can be found on the internet, but it would have been nice just to flip to a map in the book to see where the different places mentioned were in relation to one another.
Two things to bear in mind if you consider reading this book, so that you won’t be disappointed. One is that — despite the description on the cover of my edition — most of the book is not focused on Boudicca. It is about ancient Britain more generally, with other tribal leaders (first Caradoc and then Venutius) occupying most of the book. The second is that the book is long. (My edition has 744 pages of small type and it took me two months to read!) It isn’t too long — there are no extraneous scenes or plot lines — but I do recommend reading it when you know you’ll be able to dedicate the time to enjoy it fully. It’s also dense, with many characters and lots of detail, so it’s best read in long sections, rather than in little snippets.
I checked what is known about the history and it seems that, at least in broad strokes, the book is historically accurate.
My only criticism of the book is that I wish that my edition had had a map of ancient Britain. Obviously these can be found on the internet, but it would have been nice just to flip to a map in the book to see where the different places mentioned were in relation to one another.