Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom
I have just finished reading this book which has taken me a little while. I read it because I enjoyed CJ Sansom's Tudor England (Shardlake) series so much. The author has meticulously researched the history of the Spanish Civil War and its effects on the various classes of people in Spain, and the situation in Europe at the time, with the risk of Spain allying with the Germans against Britain. It shows the great divisions in Spain following the war, and the bitter wounds caused to family and social relationships by dividing the nation (similar to Yugoslavia I imagine). Anyway, basically this is a love/spy story set during this period.
However, I found I had to push myself to read it until the last third of the book when they started to plot the prisoners escape. I had to keep reminding myself who the different factions were (Falangists/Republicans etc) and maybe it wasn’t intended as an exciting, gripping read but I kept waiting for something to happen but it didn’t until the end. For me it was slow; interesting and informative of that era, but slow and the characters flat.
It says on the front cover ‘if you like Sebastian Faulks & Carlos Ruiz Zafon, you’ll love this’……..in that case I won’t bother reading those two………!
review by showhost
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1 comment:
In that case you'll prove yourself a dunce and it will be your loss. This book is nothing like Zafon or Faulks at all, and if you just decide to read or not to read a book because a stupid commercial blurb you prove ourself unfit to talk about books at all.
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