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A review by aimeesbookishlife
The Lioness of Morocco by Julia Drosten
2.0
Full review available on my blog: https://aimeedawes.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/review-the-lioness-of-morocco/
Disclosure: I received a free digital copy of this book via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.
I had high hopes for this book because I was a bit tired of the same-old historical romances set in medieval England (I'm looking at you, Phillipa Gregory) and I was looking forward to something different.
This book is nothing like Gregory's, mostly because it has a whole load of one-dimensional characters, a twenty-year romance that's not entirely believable, and anachronistic language (such as slang terms like 'slut' and 'brat') that completely breaks the immersion. There is very little in the way of actual plot; instead, page after page is dedicated to boring conversations where the characters go into minute detail about trade agreements or the quality of saffron. A couple of these were useful for the reader to get an idea of the nature of Sibylla's business, but it got tedious after a while and I would have traded them all in for a few paragraphs about how the characters are feeling or what they are thinking.
The redeeming feature is the stunning descriptions of Morocco that really made me want to get on a plane in an instant. The writers have obviously spent time in Morocco and their love for the country comes through in beautiful prosaic descriptions of the landscape, the smells, the atmosphere of the souks and the colours of the buildings. This bumped my rating up a little bit, although to be honest I think it is still quite a generous score given the book’s many faults.
Disclosure: I received a free digital copy of this book via NetGalley, in return for an honest review.
I had high hopes for this book because I was a bit tired of the same-old historical romances set in medieval England (I'm looking at you, Phillipa Gregory) and I was looking forward to something different.
This book is nothing like Gregory's, mostly because it has a whole load of one-dimensional characters, a twenty-year romance that's not entirely believable, and anachronistic language (such as slang terms like 'slut' and 'brat') that completely breaks the immersion. There is very little in the way of actual plot; instead, page after page is dedicated to boring conversations where the characters go into minute detail about trade agreements or the quality of saffron. A couple of these were useful for the reader to get an idea of the nature of Sibylla's business, but it got tedious after a while and I would have traded them all in for a few paragraphs about how the characters are feeling or what they are thinking.
The redeeming feature is the stunning descriptions of Morocco that really made me want to get on a plane in an instant. The writers have obviously spent time in Morocco and their love for the country comes through in beautiful prosaic descriptions of the landscape, the smells, the atmosphere of the souks and the colours of the buildings. This bumped my rating up a little bit, although to be honest I think it is still quite a generous score given the book’s many faults.