Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can I give it 10 stars? Please?, June 28, 2001
This review is from: Beacon at Alexandria (The Hera Series) (Paperback)
This is, without a doubt, my favorite book of all time. I discovered it languishing in my high school library, not checked out in years, and after I read it I ran to the bookstore and tried to buy a copy. No luck -- it was out of print at that time -- and so, I am ashamed to admit, I swiped my high school library's copy and paid the exorbitant fine. It was well worth it. Bradshaw's conversational writing style hooks you immediately and takes you into the vast Roman empire shortly before its downfall, makes you feel as if you're really there, by focusing on one young woman, Charis, and her struggle to find her identity and be true to herself. The characters are people you wish you knew, the situations Charis finds herself in keep you on the edge of your seat, and the incredibly researched detail and descriptions add depth to the narrative without ever overpowering the story. Indeed, such meticulous detail only increases the reader's feeling of actually being there, actually seeing what Charis sees and smelling what she smells and feeling her emotions as real as you feel your own. BUY THIS BOOK. NOW. TODAY. Even if you've never liked historical novels, you'll like this one. Because it's not about the history -- although there's lots of it, and it's well-presented, since Bradshaw has a Master's degree in classics from Cambridge -- but about Charis, and what she goes through to discover her inner strengths and desires. She's a complex character who undergoes changes as she ages and learns, and she's a remarkable heroine who's honest, hardworking, dedicated, and very human. Some book characters you want for your real-life friends; Charis is the kind of character you wish you were. I read this book every year, and every year I'm amazed by how much I learn from it, how much it affects my outlook on life, and how indescribably enjoyable I find the time I spend in cultured Ephesus and learned Alexandria and wild Thrace with the most esteemed Charis and her wonderful friends. This is a fabulous character-driven novel for anyone -- lovers of adventure, history, medicine, LIFE.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
beautiful, poignant and full of hope, July 29, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Beacon at Alexandria (The Hera Series) (Paperback)
Set in the 4th century of Roman Empire on the eve of its military collapse, the story pits a Greek/Roman noblewoman and a naturalized German prince against the arrogance, corruption and cruelty of an imperial culture they nontheless loved and hoped to preserve. A poignant classic told from the viewpoint of perpetual outsider
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
High-grade historical romance, August 1, 2005
This review is from: Beacon at Alexandria (The Hera Series) (Paperback)
There are not many historical novels about late antiquity (with the exception of the ages of Attila and Justinian), so I was eager to find what Bradshaw had made of the years leading up to the Gothic incursion in 378. In fact, she has done quite well, turning out a very readable story told from the point of view of an interesting if somewhat unlikely character, while being true to the facts as we know them. She has obviously done her homework, which makes it all the more surprising that (judging from her introduction to the original edition) she was completely unaware of J.C. Rolfe's 20th-century translation of Ammianus Marcellinus, the contemporary historian whose influence, as she acknowledges, is evident on every page.
At times it does feel as if the author is manipulating the story to cram in as many historical characters as possible (are we to think, for example, that the slave boy Alaric in the last chapters grows up to be the sacker of Rome?), but in general the scholarship is woven effortlessly into the background, and we get a reasonably accurate picture of fourth-century Roman and Gothic society.
As for the sensibilities, though, I don't find the book so convincing. Not that feminism was a complete impossibility in that era (one need only think of Hypatia), but Charis is just too modern in her outlook, to say nothing of her understanding of infectious diseases. And the world she moves through, despite its institutions of slavery and torture, simply doesn't feel foreign enough. The illusion that we're reading history rather than romance is shattered completely in the last chapter, where the awful catastrophe of Adrianople fades to insignificance beside the too-neat resolution of Charis's conflicting emotional needs.
I recommend the book as a good read, and you will learn something about the tumultous and fascinating fourth century, as long as you don't mind a little Harlequin mixed in.
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