Customer Reviews

Roxana Romance

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Found this to be a slow, and at times hard to believe story, about a subject that should be a compelling read The love story of Alexander and Roxane is passed over by history but this novel really missed the mark. Alexander's best friend and Roxane becoming lovers? Are you kidding me! Any one who has studied the life of Alexander will find the story and characters hard to swallow. A man that conquered the world and the woman he loved deserve better than this.

The book, Roxana Romance, is a slow, laborious read. I'm a keeper of books, but this one I threw in the trash. I could not finish it. As an editor, I was aghast at how poorly the book was written. The English language is one of poetry, but on every page of this book, English was raped. A total waste of time.

Finally, a sweeping story about a Persian princess, that spans across the fragrant Persian paradises through bloody battlefields and burned ruins, hanging gardens of Babylon and plum orchards of Macedonia and ending up in the exotic India, for those of us who have always been captivated by the ancient Persia and the Persians.

Like historical novels? You will love this book. It's the story of Roxana, the young Persian woman who marries Alexander the Great. She is torn from her family and accompanies the famous warrior around Central Asia as he conquers everything in his path, and finds a life and calling of her own as travel and intrigue carry her through a fascinating series of adventures. This is more than a woman's tale: it's a story about love that is never lost, and how love transcends culture, race, and age. The author's extensive research illuminates life in the 4th century B.C.E. in what is now Iraq, Iran, Greece and India. There are plenty of glossaries, maps, timelines, and family trees to familiarize you with the times and the characters, who really come to life on the page. World history, fabulous palaces and cities, ancient gods and goddesses, love, sex and families, the incredible waste and sorrow of war, all of this made for a story I really couldn't put down and wanted more of at the end.

The book definitely piqued my interest to know more about the characters and the events that happened during the life of Alexander the Great! Could one woman really have entranced so many men? A timeline, geneological charts and a detailed bibliography provide basis for pursuing the historical facts. But for those who prefer romances to historical detail -- just read for the pleasure!

An extraoridnary writer and historian. Only extensive research and the writer's knowlege and subject sensitivity could possibly have contributed to such a page-turner.

Roxana Romance, the Book of Roshanak, chronicles the life of Roxana (Roshanak), a Bactrian-Persian princess, from her marriage to Alexander the Macedonian conqueror when she is sixteen to the end of her life nearly 3 decades later.
A story filled with love and lost, death and birth, rise and fall, where ancient civilizations clash and burn and mesh and create those who come after.
While according to ancient historians, Roxana and her son were killed and their bodies never found, I can't help wishing that her real life had taken a path closer to the romance in this great lyrical novel.