Saturday 8 June 2013

HISTORICAL FICTION REVIEW: War God: Nights of the Witch - Graham Hancock

Release Date: 30/05/13
Publisher:  Coronet Books

SYNOPSIS:

A young girl called Tozi stands at the bottom of a pyramid, waiting to be led to the top where her heart will be cut out...Pepillo, a Spanish orphan who serves a sadistic Dominican friar, is aboard the Spanish fleet as it sails towards Mexico...This is the epic story of the clash of two empires, two armies and two gods of war. Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong. This is a war of gods and men. Dark powers that work behind the scenes of history show their hand as the prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl is fulfilled with the arrival of Cortes. The Aztec ruler Moctezuma fights to maintain the demands of the war god Huitzilopochtli for human sacrifice. The Spanish Inquisition is planning an even greater blood-letting. Caught up in the headlong collision between two gods of war are Tozi, Pepillo and the beautiful sex slave Malinal whose hatred of Moctezuma runs so deep she will sell out her own land and people to destroy him.


REVIEW:

To be honest I was quite looking forward to this book as I was wondering what the author would do when he moved from factual titles through to the fiction genre and whilst I loved certain aspects of this such as Graham’s research to try and add authenticity, I did feel that he didn’t quite bring the reader into the story with the characters.

For me they felt a little flat, that there was no real connection for me as a reader and to be honest without that, I always find it hard to get to grips with a story. Don’t get me wrong the idea was solid, the pace acceptable but all round this sadly wasn’t a book that will draw me in to more of Graham’s fiction but that said I will try again to see if the next story improves.



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