It had been some time since I'd taken a romp through Napoleonic battlefields and was ready for a rollicking adventure, but found myself asking where the action is after the prologue. I will plagiarise myself as this was what I posted as my initial reaction to the book:
I'm not certain if it is because it's the first instalment of a trilogy and should be treated as a part rather than a whole, but I found that while the character development was good, I was impatient for battle. Then it occurred to me that I was more anxious, tense and fearful than the characters.
This lack of a sense of impending doom, of being harried to get fit or to get things done, or of cementing a love affair made the whole book feel flat for me. Even Wickham's lack of enthusiasm didn't really catch up to me. After a long thing I felt that perhaps the author had tried to fit too much into the story. Trying to make the overall work a central feature for the dozens of sub-plots, some popping up unexpectedly and in the most random locations, some seemingly altogether out of place and adding no discernible input to the story.
I admit that there is no love lost between me and the likes of Austen, the Brontës, Hawthorne et al..., and as Goldworthy indicates this was an attempt at recapturing the essence of those writers, I suspect this type of narrative is simply not for me. It may very work for those who do enjoy the above noted classics as the writing itself has a lovely cadence and the language is quite nice. I just didn't have the overall pace I was expecting from a book about the Napoleonic wars.
Review originally appeared on the now defunct Paternoster Row Legacy blog.
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