This is the first book in a trilogy about Jack Fiskardo; the story details Jack's life during, and in the run up to, the Thirty Years War.
The book is split into three parts:
- The first introduces us to Jack as a young teenager, in the early years of the war, living rough and earning what he can at the docks;
- The second takes us back to when Jack was a small child, so we can learn what happened during his childhood to shape Jack as he is;
- The third part rejoins Jack in his late teens and early twenties as we follow him on his quest for vengeance.
This is quite a weighty tome, coming in at over 500 pages, and there is a lot of reading within those pages - you find yourself totally immersed within the scenes that J.C. Harvey depicts. You will also find familiar historical characters within those pages (e.g. Cardinal Richelieu), and although the author does admit in the Author's Note at the beginning of the book that she has 'played fast and loose with documented history', the things that the characters do seem in keeping with those times - nothing ever seems far-fetched, or too much of a stretch of the imagination.
I really enjoyed this book, and would thoroughly recommend it.
The book is split into three parts:
- The first introduces us to Jack as a young teenager, in the early years of the war, living rough and earning what he can at the docks;
- The second takes us back to when Jack was a small child, so we can learn what happened during his childhood to shape Jack as he is;
- The third part rejoins Jack in his late teens and early twenties as we follow him on his quest for vengeance.
This is quite a weighty tome, coming in at over 500 pages, and there is a lot of reading within those pages - you find yourself totally immersed within the scenes that J.C. Harvey depicts. You will also find familiar historical characters within those pages (e.g. Cardinal Richelieu), and although the author does admit in the Author's Note at the beginning of the book that she has 'played fast and loose with documented history', the things that the characters do seem in keeping with those times - nothing ever seems far-fetched, or too much of a stretch of the imagination.
I really enjoyed this book, and would thoroughly recommend it.