The Light Bearer

Unfinished; page 350 was the point where I gave up. Some books just aren't worth the time.

Plot: Predictable, utterly predictable. Special girl is born with prophecies that she'll be pivotal for her people, and proceeds to live up to every stereotype possible in the setting. On the other side, special boy is found to be heir to a noble family and proceeds to be the only morally non-corrupted person in Rome.

Characters: Out-of-the-box. The good ones are smart and pretty and well-trained and strong, the bad ones are smelly, drunk rapists with room temperature IQs and arrogance to boot. There's not a single character who isn't a stereotype, from the old wise hag who acts strange to the foreign prisoner who trains the heroine and falls in show more love with her. Plenty of noble savages around.

Style: Boring prose that got tackled with the belief that occasional reversion of word order makes things sound better. Point of view changes randomly in subsequent paragraphs. Historical clichès get paraded, with every sordid bit of gossip being treated as fact, while real political twists are ignored. PS - during the rule of Nero, no such thing as "Switzerland" existed. Yes, it may be easier to give the area that label, but all it does is demonstrate that "historical novel" is a euphemism.

Plus: Hard to think of something.

Minus: It's a gossipy special-girl-saves-the-world (and I bet she ends up with the special Roman, while the current foreign love interest bites the dust in heroic sacrifice at some point). Much pretense to be a historical novel, but scratch the surface and the shine is gone.

Summary: Not worth it, not even for laughs. show less

Really enjoyed this historical novel; romance was done to the right degree without overwhelming the historical aspect, and there was a good amount of action and political developments. Curiously I liked Marcus' side of the story a lot better than the heroine's; I found his plot more interesting, and his portions better written. Fantastic, exciting conclusion.

Fantastic novel with a kick ass heroine before Anita Blake knew how to kick ass. Set in Britain during the attempted Roman conquest. Druids, battles, love and more. Historical fiction at its finest.

I wasn't as excited about this book as I thought I d be. Took a long time to get into it.

Fantastic book!

On the day of her birth, Auriane received a mysterious amulet from a priestess-and a doubleedged prophecy of doom and glory. The daughter of a Germanic tribal chieftain, Auriane witnessed unspeakable horrors committed against her people by ruthless invaders. And when tragedy tore her family apart, she took the oath of a warrior, and vowed revenge. Tales of her brilliant swath of conquest carried as far as Rome, to the renowned statesman Marcus Julianus-who felt his destiny intertwined with Auriane's, and wore about his neck an identical amulet

Haar naam is bekend tot over de grenzen van het decadente keizerrijk Rome. De strijd voor haar volk is legendarisch. Haar liefde onmogelijk.
De koude, grimmige voorjaarsnacht wordt verscheurd door wolvengehuil. In de primitieve hut van Baldemar, krijgsheer der Chatten, wordt een dochter geboren. Haar naam is Auriane. De hogepriesteres voorspelt dat het kind een veelbewogen leven zal leiden. Onheil en overwinning zullen elkaar afwisselen. Auriane is voorbestemd krijgsvrouwe te worden en haar volk langs het pad der duisternis te leiden.

De hogepriesteres schenkt Auriane een machtig amulet dat haar moet beschermen tegen de mysterieuze krachten die haar leven zullen beheersen. Auriane groeit op tot een felle, trotse jonge vrouw. Maar na een show more dramatische gebeurtenis ziet ze zich gedwongen haar volk te verlaten en ten strijde te trekken. De duistere voorspellingen, gemaakt bij haar geboorte, komen uit.

De verhalen over Aurianes roemruchte daden worden tot in Rome doorverteld. Daar vinden ze een gewillig oor bij Marcus Julianus, een fameuze staatsman, wiens lot onverbrekelijk is verbonden met dat van Auriane. Verstopt onder zijn prachtige gewaden draagt ook Marcus een amulet – identiek aan het amulet van Auriane....

Auriane is een groots epos over de fascinerende, rijke wereld der Germanen, en de corruptie en decadentie van het Rome ten tijde van keizer Nero. Een verhaal over een dappere, eigenzinnige heldin die weigert zich te onderwerpen in een door mannen gedomineerde wereld. show less