Customer Reviews

The Legend of Hereward:: A Novel of Norman England, 1063-1071 AD

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I'm a big Ripley fan, have bought his "Angel" books for years, and thoroughly enjoyed his Boudica historical fiction book - I also am an English history buff. However, this book - which I bought for $28.00 when it first came out, rather than wait for a reduced price - was very disappointing. Hereward is simply a nasty piece of work. Ripley writes the true Hereward story (or well-imagined Hereward story) competently, but it's almost impossible to get past the problem that a story starring a nasty piece of work, with no redeeming qualities, is hard to get into. Hereward is a legend in England, much embellished over the centuries, and I believe that Mike Ripley has a done a great job of writing and researching and the writing is entertaining, don't get me wrong. I wanted to like it, I tried to like it, but I just couldn't like it. I found myself putting it down constantly and looking around for something else to read.

I love Ripley's new bent toward historical writing, and look forward to more of it - but hopefully he'll pick someone a touch easier to stomach than Hereward and his not very merry band!