Rebels and Traitors

November 9, 2009
Bestseller Davis (Alexandria
) takes a break from her popular Roman historical mysteries with this sprawling epic of the English civil war. Alas, after the brief, moving prologue, which vividly depicts the final hours of Charles Stuart before his execution in 1649, the novel never again attains that narrative height. The action shifts to 1634, laying the groundwork for the conflict that culminated in the royal beheading and continues through the downfall of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in 1657 before a pat ending. Much of the action is seen through the eyes of a resourceful survivor, Gideon Jukes, a printer who ends up becoming a musketeer in one of the London Trained Bands, fighting for the Parliament against the king’s men. Efforts to humanize the conflict by providing the bookish Jukes with a love interest don’t amount to much. Still, the author does a good job of showing the changing role of print in the political struggles.

January 15, 2010
Seventeenth-century monarch Charles I attempts to rule England without parliamentary guidance, a misstep that will lead to the bloodthirsty conflict known as the English Civil War. In this sprawling historical saga, the author of the popular Marcus Didius Falco mysteries ("Alexandria") examines the lives of ordinary men and women whose world is turned upside down by the ensuing chaos. Gideon Jukes, the son of a prosperous London grocer, is sent to apprentice in a nearby print shop. The printer's seditious leanings greatly influence the young man, who will eventually find himself a captain in the parliamentarian forces. On the opposing side, Juliana Lovell, the wife of Royalist colonel Orlando Lovell, fights to keep her children fed and clothed during her husband's long absences. VERDICT Although Davis has created an assortment of interesting characters, the laundry list of battles, uprisings, and parliamentary intrigues makes for some dry reading. Fans of her Roman historicals will be disappointed. Strictly for those who enjoy their historical fiction with a liberal dose of political minutiae.Makiia Lucier, Moscow, ID

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2010
Davis hefty, ambitious epic of the English Civil War and Commonwealth of the midseventeenth century, more serious-minded than her Falco mysteries of ancient Rome, depicts this tumultuous era from the earliest rumblings against Charles Is divine-right monarchy through plottings against Cromwells Protectorate two decades later. The perspective switches among three people whose paths occasionally cross: Juliana Lovell, a Royalist wife and mother struggling with poverty, thanks to her husbands absences; Gideon Jukes, a London printers apprentice who joins Parliaments New Model Army; and a teenage vagabond girl. The most exciting scenes dramatize events from their lives, such as the devastation wrought by the cavalier armys brutal advance into Birmingham. The immense amount of background detail sometimes integrates well with the fictional characters stories, though generally its piled on thickly. Devotees of the period will appreciate its authentic depiction and the breadth of coverage; everyone else will learn much about politics, military actions, social movements, religious sects, and the daily life of ordinary people as alliances shift, groups splinter off, and the meaning of treason changes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)