Customer Reviews

Boudica: Queen of the Iceni

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Thanks to the author, Joseph E. Roesch, for his in depth research on Boudica, the people of the period and for his presentation of a time in history told in a manner that made this reader feel as if she were living throughout the period of Boudica's reign.
The author presents the story of a historical character steeped in the archives of history and brought to the forefront by a man who did his homework in telling the story of this courageous woman warrior and wife. He did not stray in his apparent desire to give a factual accounting of Boudica, her intelligence and her allegiance to family and country as well as her quest to restore a heritage to her people that was slowly being striped away.
Thank you Mr. Roesch for introducing me to a woman I had no idea even existed and has now made me want to likewise research her history.
How proud you must be to have traveled the roads traveled by Boudica and to have brought her into the 21st century.
Boudica is a book to be digested, enjoyed and remembered.

Joseph Roesch (pronouced Rush)turns prose into poetry in Boudica Queen of the Iceni, his debut novel. He's written a well reasearched, emminently readable piece of literary historical fiction. He obviously loves his heroine, and imbues her with a regal beauty denied her in previous historical accounts. Roesch deftly interweaves historical personages and well drawn fictive characters, and entices the reader to mentally move to the first century and witness Boudica lead an heroic, yet ultimately tragic uprising against her people's Roman oppressors.
I read the book once for the story, then again for the beauty of the prose. I recomemnd this lovely novel without reservation!

Boudica: Queen of the Iceni is the product of a master storyteller. The book opens with a charming look at Boudica as a child; then one scene after another seduces the reader to want more. Joseph Roesch excels at writing descriptions so vivid the reader feels the mist in the glen, shudders against the driving snow and is blinded by the thick fog. His picture of the brutality of unchecked power is breathtaking. The book is an inspiring look at a people struggling to be free, told without sentimentality, yet with great passion. What a fantastic story. It really was hard to put the book down.

This book is a welcome surprise for anyone with the slightest curiosity about the past history of the English speaking peoples. How many of us even recall that Britain was once under the iron will of the Roman Empire? This book gives lives, voices and emotions to names many of us never were aware existed. It is a compelling read. These particular moments of the past are brought to life colorfully and plausibly. The story is the stuff of legends and must have been told and retold as it was passed along from fathers to sons and perhaps more importantly mothers to daughters. The characterizations are vivid and you quickly forget that you are reading fiction albeit with true incidents.

Dr. Roesch has told the story in a way that is not only very exciting but personally engrossing and he has given us a bit of actual history to think on. I can earnestly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in our heritage or for just reading a very good tale.

There's been a lot written about Boudica, the British warrior-queen of two thousand years ago, but in twenty centuries, facts can become slippery and elusive, if not lost altogether. So a certain type of historical fiction has become popular: the characters of a book are drawn from real life, the known history is studied and applied assiduously, and holes in the story are filled in with compatible characters and events. If this is well done, the author might just succeed in uncovering truths ignored or even hidden by history, perhaps truths more striking and wondrous than any historical reality. And readers will come away with insights and deeper understanding than might be obtained through strict historical accounts.
Such a book is BOUDICA, QUEEN OF THE ICENI, by Joseph E. Roesch. Mr. Roesch, a former professor of English, who has studied the life of Boudica since his grad school days, has produced a fine account of the life of his heroine, and its meaning. As I'd have expected, the research is impressive. The writing is elegant, and the story captivating. This outstanding piece of living history succeeds in making a shadowy two-thousand-year-old figure accessible to any lay reader.
We follow Boudica's life, starting with her childhood, through the abduction of her mother and sister, the decline of her father, her forced marriage to a man she does not care for, her husband's death, and her remarriage to her true love. During all this time, we witness endless intertribal disputes and warfare, which cease when the tribes, under Boudica's effective politicking, decide to join forces against the Romans, who hold sway over the British Isles. Boudica's revolt against the foreign oppressors comes heartbreakingly close to succeeding, but ends with the death in battle of the warrior-queen, whose legacy of resistance then is picked up by her husband and her mystic daughter.
Dialogue and setting are particularly well-done: the speech is always appropriate to each individual, and clearly that of people of long ago, but is never stilted or unintentionally humorous. And the descriptions of the surroundings help make it very clear what living in those times must have been like. The fictional portions of the story blend comfortably and without discord into the factually historical.
As I read along, I couldn't help thinking that we haven't made much progress in 20 centuries: what's going on right now in Iraq and Africa is as brutal (and as venal) as the behavior of the Romans, and for that matter, of many of the British tribes. And the observation that the only time the tribes stopped fighting wars with each other was when they found themselves a common enemy hits home today, as well.
I've heard people say that they read only nonfiction, because when they read, they want to learn something. But all my life, I've learned far more about human beings from fiction than from nonfiction. If we had more books like BOUDICA, QUEEN OF THE ICENI, we have much greater historical literacy in our country. I hope Joe Roesch continues to do his part toward this end.

This is the first historical novel that I have read and I throughly enjoyed it. Mr. Roesch developed an intimate portrayal of Queen Boudica that flows very well and an excellent account of her probable life experiences. The flaws in human nature where the Romans thought they were superior to the Celt tribes reminds us of the same pattern of treatment to others upon the founding of the United States. I recommend this book as a valid historical work on Queen Boudica and for anyone interested in the way the ancient Romans dealt with their enemies.