Rebels and Traitors PDF
Preview Rebels and Traitors
Bestseller Davis (_Alexandria_) takes a break from her popular Roman historical mysteries with this sprawling epic of the English civil war. Alas, after the brief, moving prologue, which vividly depicts the final hours of Charles Stuart before his execution in 1649, the novel never again attains that narrative height. The action shifts to 1634, laying the groundwork for the conflict that culminated in the royal beheading and continues through the downfall of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate in 1657 before a pat ending. Much of the action is seen through the eyes of a resourceful survivor, Gideon Jukes, a printer who ends up becoming a musketeer in one of the London Trained Bands, fighting for the Parliament against the king's men. Efforts to humanize the conflict by providing the bookish Jukes with a love interest don't amount to much. Still, the author does a good job of showing the changing role of print in the political struggles. (Jan.)
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Davis’ hefty, ambitious epic of the English Civil War and Commonwealth of the mid–seventeenth century, more serious-minded than her Falco mysteries of ancient Rome, depicts this tumultuous era from the earliest rumblings against Charles I’s divine-right monarchy through plottings against Cromwell’s Protectorate two decades later. The perspective switches among three people whose paths occasionally cross: Juliana Lovell, a Royalist wife and mother struggling with poverty, thanks to her husband’s absences; Gideon Jukes, a London printer’s apprentice who joins Parliament’s New Model Army; and a teenage vagabond girl. The most exciting scenes dramatize events from their lives, such as the devastation wrought by the cavalier army’s brutal advance into Birmingham. The immense amount of background detail sometimes integrates well with the fictional characters’ stories, though generally it’s piled on thickly. Devotees of the period will appreciate its authentic depiction and the breadth of coverage; everyone else will learn much about politics, military actions, social movements, religious sects, and the daily life of ordinary people as alliances shift, groups splinter off, and the meaning of treason changes. --Sarah Johnson
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