I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I found this book a delightful story really interesting and I think you will too.

Fortune is a book that I honestly was interested in because of it's beautiful cover. It starts in 1806 in Berlin when Napoleon takes over the city. From there it shows so many people and events over the next 100 years that it is often hard to follow along. There is a lot going on and I found that very interesting but I would have liked to have learned more about the characters.

4.5★
“But Beatrice turned away, went to the front door and stepped outside. Then the door closed and she was gone. And that’s all we’ll ever know about her. She has slipped off our map.”

That is indicative of the strange, meandering nature of this far-reaching, far-fetched novel. You never know which character will turn up again in what far-flung place or disappear forever. Berlin, Suriname, Australia, and all points between. Battlefields, jungle rivers, plantations. Far out, indeed.

Fortune means everything here: riches, luck, success. Who has, or will achieve, what?

I don’t know how many stories there are or how many characters cross paths with each other or dip in and out of each other’s stories over the course of a century and a bit.

Some characters recur from beginning to end (one is 126 years old?) or nearly the end, while some have macabre outcomes. There are petty thieves, whores, smugglers, and slave traders. Animal collectors and dealers. Soldiers and armies.

One of them is also a philosopher.

“‘Life is not unfurling in a line, but rather being spun, constantly, around and around our voluptuous Mother Earth, who is herself simultaneously turning, turning!’”

That seems to me to apply to this book. It begins in 1806, with Napoleon entering Berlin on his big white horse, and ends in France in 1916, in the middle of WWI. But there are flashbacks and memories that spin the stories around each other.

Johannes Meyer is a teenager who is pulled into an empty house by young Beatrice (the girl who disappeared in the opening quotation) for a quick fling (her idea, but he’s happy to comply). The window to the street is open, and the coupling pair are seen by a few people passing by. They coincidentally appear later in the story, sometimes a world away. (Far-fetched?) One of them is another young woman. She’s not so much shocked as jealous.

“Elisabeth was seventeen years old and locked inside the heated tumult of a young body. Her skin was sensitive to even the thought of a touch; her nights were long and sleepless in her transforming. She was overwhelmed by love and longing, could hardly wait to enter the world and be found by this love, a dream of such exquisite possibility that it seemed inevitable. Instead, she found herself in a constant state of anticipation, disappointment and, ultimately, boredom.”

Typical teenager. There are many wry asides, as if the author is giving us a wink and a nod to say this is mostly fiction, but you know, a lot of these things really happened somewhere, and this is your history.

As for the fictional characters, some are terrifying. There is torture and slaughter, not to mention collectors of shrunken heads (including instructions of how to shrink-one-yourself – eww). One man waits at the bottom of a guillotine and attempts to talk to freshly beheaded heads, going so far as to coach the condemned prisoners beforehand to respond to him “after” – (eww again).

Much of this reminded of the darkly funny parts of Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan and Barkskins by Annie Proulx, two books which seemed to cover both the humanity and inhumanity of colonisation, also with dark humour.

There’s nothing funny about transportation. This description of the ‘Guildford’ would put off the strongest seafarer. It is

“bound for New South Wales. LONDON – CANARY ISLANDS – RIO DE JANEIRO – CAPE TOWN – PORT JACKSON
. . .

Down the ladder, into the hold.

They rushed and wrestled for the berths nearer the hatchways. They fought, dominance and subservience re-established. The weakest would trade all sorts of favours down the line.

After some time, the heavy vibration of the anchor chain suddenly rumbled through the hull. Not a man moved, each one stock-still, sentences cut off in the middle, thoughts slashed, dropped dead. They listened.

The timbers boomed and the ship groaned, the bow dipped under the strain; the men stood braced. Above they could hear the sailors running and shouting now, and whistles blew and their bare feet drummed the deck and then, just like that, the ‘Guildford’ came free and began to float. Every man’s stomach lurched.”

I’ve given nothing of he sense of the flow of the story, largely because it doesn’t so much flow as hit you in the face with short chapters, and sometimes it’s up to you to figure out how it fits in with the others (and it will). Some descriptions are lovely and evocative - it's not all grim!

I think this is one that will divide readers, depending on tastes and moods. I may have to read it again – it was complicated (for me), but intriguing enough to want to piece more together.

Thanks to NetGalley and Arcade Publishing for the review copy from which I’ve quoted.

the cover is what drew me in and I'm glad I was able to read this. It was a great time period to pick and the characters felt liked they belonged in there.

My thanks to the publisher for the review copy, and my apologies for the belated feedback! This was an okay read for me, it was a lot to keep track of and occasionally all over the place. But the premise was definitely something different, and I always love a book that takes me somewhere I've never been before!

Thanks to Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me. Too many character perspectives plopped in and the constant flipping between them made me unable to get really deep into the narrative.

Publication Date 16/02/21
Goodreads review published 22/05/21

The cover of this one is 5 star worthy, unfortunately, the book wasn't anywhere near a 5 star read for me. This was another book that I kept setting aside to read other things. 🤷 It was ALL over the place. Hard to follow. The writing wasn't great. I'll just leave it at that.

Lenny Bartulin's Fortune was a flat-out fun read. The novel opens on the day Napoleon rode into Berlin after defeating the Prussians. Bartulin introduces an assortment of characters, none of who actually saw the conquering general,and then unspools their subsequent lives for readers. This is a relatively short book, so readers don't get epic tales or slowly simmering character profiles. What readers do get is the pleasure of following the lives of a variety of characters, each with their own motivations, whose lives span most of the globe—South America, Australia—by the book's end. This is a wonderful book to read when you want entertainment, pure and simple. Fortune will provide exactly what you're looking for.

I received an electronic review copy of this title via the publisher; the opinions are my own.

While major historical events unfold, "ordinary" people keep going about their lives, experiencing joys, hardships, fateful meetings and making what will become life-changing decisions. That is the basis for Lenny Bartulin's new US release, Fortune. The novel is a sweeping historical epic, comprised of several intertwined narrative threads told from uniquely personal perspectives.
As Napoleon marches into Berlin in October 1806, we see the event through the eyes of several characters.
Johannes Meyer, aged eighteen, abandons the crowd watching the Grande Armée, to enjoy a brief tryst with a coffee house waitress. They're observed in flagrante delicto through a window by two passers-by, Marie-Henri Beyle, years prior to finding his fame as the philosopher / writer Stendhal, and seventeen-year-old Elizabeth von Hoffman. Johannes and Elizabeth briefly lock eyes, the moment passes and they move in separate directions towards their far-flung destinies.
Later that evening, Prussian Heinrich Krüger is heckled as he philosophises on the cyclical nature of time, life, knowledge and love. On the other side of Berlin, specimen collector Claus von Rolt receives an American, Wesley Lewis Jr. and his Surinamese companion, Mr. Hendrik, who are trying to dispose of a barrel of rare but rapidly deteriorating live electric eels on behalf of their employer, plantation owner Captain van der Velde. After an altercation with the three men, Johannes finds himself forcibly conscripted to the Grande Armée as a drummer. After a chance meeting, Kruger decides to accompany Lewis and Hendrik as they set out on their return journey to Paramaribo, Suriname.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth forms a romantic attachment to Général de Brigade Michel François Fourés of the Grande Armée, who is temporarily billeted at her elderly aunt's residence, and absconds with him, dreaming of a life of adventure.
From there, the characters' paths diverge, occasionally crossing or unwittingly passing by, first through western and northern Europe, then across the Atlantic to northern South America. One character finds himself in remote Van Dieman's Land (now Tasmania, Australia), before a twist of fate leads him once again to meet a familiar set of eyes.
A brief final episode set in Tasmania and the trenches of World War 1 in Europe brings the story full circle.
Given that the above is only a brief overview of the cast of characters and unfolding storyline of Fortune, readers will appreciate that it takes some concentration to keep track of the various personalities and timelines, as the short chapters jump between the different perspectives. That concentration, however, is justly rewarded by a rich and complex reading experience, featuring well-developed characters, engrossing plots and exotic locations.
Lenny Bartulin's writing is lyrical and evocative, without ever becoming cumbersome or convoluted. I found myself genuinely engaged in the titular fortunes of the two central characters, Johannes and Elizabeth, as they unfold, buffeted by turns of luck, circumstance and apparently random events. The focus moves seamlessly from seemingly mundane details of day-to-day life to occasional glimpses of famous figures and notable historical events. Bartulin's considerable research into the period(s) in which his book is set is evident throughout. I was particularly delighted to find a cross-over with Adam Courtenay's modern Tasmanian classic, The Ship that Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History, of which I am very fond.
It has taken me some time to mull over this book before writing my review, such was the effect it had on me. I recommend it highly to all readers who enjoy historical epic, swashbuckling adventures and quality character-driven sagas.
My thanks to the author, fellow Tasmanian Lenny Bartulin, publisher Skyhorse Publishing (Arcade Publishing) and Netgalley, for the opportunity to read and review this excellent title.

Synonym that first comes to mind when I finished this book was “sweeping”. Beginning with Napoleon’s 1806 grand entry into Berlin and spanning a century, Bartulin’s globe-spanning book looks at the impact of Napoleon’s triumphant on a few people whose lives briefly touched on that day. What I came away with was the feeling for all the horrible things that are bad, there are people of the world who are kind, loyal and respect humankind.

The premise of this book really gave me hope. I love historical fiction and learning new bits about different periods in time, but this book was really difficult for me to get into. There were also some elements (specific language, themes, and perspectives) of the book that didn't sit quite right for me, but I think many other people might enjoy this novel.

3/5 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a great writer. Intelligent , witty , and fast paced historical fiction. And so different. I’ll let others explain it but all I can tell you is that this is something special. Have put Bartulin’s previous historical ,infamy, on my must read list. Highly recommended.

Wow, I was not expecting that! I totally missed this book when it was originally published in Australia, but am glad that I've now had the opportunity to catch up because I loved it. Anyone who has followed my reviews for a while will know that I can't resist a story about connections, or the connectedness of people/events, and this one delivers in spades. I was entertained from the first page to the last of this fresh, fast-paced novel.

It all begins in December 1806 when Napoleon Bonaparte triumphantly enters Berlin. Most of the main characters are there on that day - some already known to each other - and are keenly aware of the significance, even if they don't all see the parade. Over the following years, these characters spin away from Berlin, all across the globe, sometimes crossing paths and other times just missing each other. A bit like looking into a kaleidoscope. Their journeys take them across Europe, South America and Oceania. From Johannes Meyer, world's worst deserter, to Krüger, the gentle philosopher, I found them all to be interesting in their own way, and the things that happened to them could only have been conceived by a first-class imagination. In the meantime, Bonaparte's life is moving forward too, and we occasionally check back in on him (I don't know how historically accurate these parts of the story were - it's highlighted a gap in my knowledge that I need to fill).

Never having read Bartulin before, I loved his style. Chapters are short and sharp, allowing us to keep track of what is a rather large cast of characters, while still flowing smoothly forward. There are some truly vivid scenes that will stay with me forever, I'm sure. For example, there's Claus von Rolt running through his apartment, naked but for the shrunken head he's wearing around his neck. Or Krüger being given the raw hand of a howler monkey to eat, causing him to retch over the side of the canoe, as he recognises how it resembles the hand of a child.

I'm glad to have been introduced to this exciting author and have already added his 'Infamy' to my TBR list.

This is an unusual piece of historical fiction that is both frustrating and fascinating at the same time. What Bartulin has done is follow a group of people who were all in Berlin on the day in 1805 when Napolean rode into town. Their stories twist and turn over the years- some echo back to each other and others do not. In some cases, there is only. a glimpse of the character. It's both ornate and spare as this could have easily been hundreds of pages longer. Thanks to the publisher for the Arc. It's a worthy read for fans of literary fiction.

What a mess.
I finished <i>Fortune</i> bewildered and dazed by the whiplash of the story. And, unfortunately, I don't mean any of that in a good way.

I really wanted this one to work. I was initially drawn in by the vibrantly beautiful cover, and then was pleasantly surprised when the description revealed that the book was largely set in Napoleonic Prussia. The descriptors promised that the book would be <i>"A gripping, globe-spanning historical epic."</i> I couldn't wait to see how the characters would end up going from Napoleon's Europe to South America, to Australia.

The novel opens with Napoleon parading gloriously through the streets of Berlin, as the people of the city strain to catch a glimpse of him. One of those people, caught in the crowd, is 18 year old Johannes. Apparently, according to the author, the event of an emperor strutting through the streets stirs uncontrollable lust in various women, many of who are "unable to resist" their urges.
Hmm... okay.
To prove this point, a girl who works at a coffee-house Johannes frequents happens to catch sight of him in the crowd. Without even greeting each other, she ends up immediately initiating a sexual encounter. She takes his hand in hers and brings him to her employer's house, where they brazenly have sex in front of a window out to the street.
As they are having sex, the famous author Stendhal walks by and watches them for a few minutes, until he is scared off by an approaching young lady. That young lady also stops to watch the two having sex, and Johannes looks up. Their eyes meet and apparently they form some sort of deep connection as he is literally inside another girl.

This all happened within the first few pages, and I was amused and bewildered (still in a mostly good way, so far). I definitely had not been expecting a triumphant Napoleonic parade to end in hookups and peeping Toms and - whatever it was that just happened.
At this point, I got the impression that the book was random and unpredictable, which I like.
There were already a few red flags - some very poor, amateur writing popping up in certain paragraphs, as well as strange titles (?) every few paragraphs or pages.
The author would include what seemed almost like chapter titles in bold, large letters that would preface as little as a couple paragraphs or up to a few pages of writing. This immediately struck me as annoying, but perhaps it was some quirk to the author's style that I would grow to accept as the story progressed.
These few misgivings aside, I mused that judging by the first dozen or so pages, I was in for a wild ride.

And was I ever right, because <i>Fortune</i> did indeed end up being a wild, unpredictable ride.
I mean that in the worst way.

This book tries to be everything at once, struggling so hard to be "expansive" and "epic" that it comes across as desperate. We are bombarded with hundreds of characters (one reviewer said "thousands," which certainly feels right), and given no time to get to know them. The reader is given no chance or reason to care what happens to any of them, and it would be absolutely impossible to pin down just who the main characters are, or who we are supposed to be rooting for. I had no sense of who anyone was, and did not care.

No doubt looking to add "meticulously detailed" to what he hoped reviewers would describe his book as, Bartulin throws absolutely everything we can (or would never) think of into the story.
Every single character is given a chance to jostle their way into the narrative, from the most inconsequential to the most powerful figures of the age.
The nameless guard making a note of Johannes' entry into the army? We switch to his thoughts and mindset for a few sentences. When another character is purchasing eels, we are given the entire, long story of years of the seller's life. When at one point Johannes picks up a trinket that has nothing to do with the story, we hear about the life of the woman who found it decades ago. We also are given glimpses into the thoughts of Napoleon, Empress Josephine, and various other influential players, although this is completely unnecessary to the story, and they are only lingered on for a few collective paragraphs. Stendhal, given a cameo of sorts at the beginning, does not re-appear until the end of the book - both instances needless. (I was disappointed that Stendhal didn't end up becoming an actual character, since coincidentally I am currently reading his famous novel <i>The Red and the Black</i>.)

The book switches perspectives at a dizzying breakneck speed, making it one long, tedious blur of characters. Absolutely none of them seem integral to the story. Even the two characters who appear most, and whose names perhaps I might draw out of the mire of faceless people as possibly the two protagonists (Johannes and Elisabeth) could have been removed from the book, and it would not have changed it all that much.

All in all, this book was jarring and disjointed, astoundingly convoluted, and bogged down with far, far, <i>far</i> too many characters.
Very disappointing and not recommended.

Thanks nevertheless to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for an ARC copy.

To be quite honest, I bounced off of this book quite hard; it's written in a manner that's probably quite historically accurate to the time but as such is very archaic. It's references, specifically to people of color, were particularly of the time -- the book includes references to (and in some cases, descriptions of) things like hamstringing, sexual contact between enslaved people and their captors -- which is rape, physical abuse of enslaved people, etc. It's done so in a manner that I found to be a jarring in its tone and cavalier fashion.

There are a lot of characters and I'm not sure that they're well handled here. The ending is, for me, probably the best part because you finally get to see all of those threads actually come together -- because they do. But they're difficult as a reader to juggle before that point. For me, the ending in general brought the whole book up in my estimation.

Full credit to the cover artist here; I would not have picked up this book if I had not seen the cover art. It is absolutely lovely.

Fortune follows a group of characters on their journey throughout the French Revolution. The story doesn't revolve around one set character, but takes place in multiple different settings. Jumping from locations like Prussia, to Guyana, to Britain. The story starts in an engaging way, with the meeting of a soon-to-be soldier in the Prussian army and the charming, charismatic Elisabeth!

Fortune did an amazing job in portraying characters of the time period as they should have been. The way the characters were written also made it easy to sympathize and relate to their mixes of emotions. The way that the time frames and perspectives switched through chapters was written much smoother than I had thought it would be, and though the characters may have been hard to keep up with, their miniscule personality changes made them a bit simpler to identify and visualize. The illustration of the cover is also stunning! The way that the elements of the cover can represent locations, and the status of characters is both intelligent and beautiful.

Though the writing style of the book made the story enjoyable, the amount of characters in the book was a little unnecessary. Had there been a little more utilization of their names, or markers in chapter headings indicating that it was a specific character's point of view, the book could have been easier to breeze through. Even though the beginning of the story was gripping and gave me a good first impression of where the story was headed, the pacing was also a bit slow for my taste, Although, the story was fairly interesting for the topic matter.

ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ɴᴇᴛɢᴀʟʟᴇʏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪꜱʜᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀ ɢʀᴀɴᴛɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴀᴄᴄᴇꜱꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʙᴏᴏᴋ.

thank you to netgalley for this arc!

FORTUNE was a really interesting read, and a quick one, too. i loved the format of the story being told through several perspectives over time. the historical references and implications blew me away. and i loved seeing johannes meyers live his life the only way he knew how: freely

4/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the e-arc!

Fascinating novel that develops and astonishes me as time passes by

Fortune belongs to the category of books that one remembers. The complexity of the period and the global vision of the early 19th century affairs are well depicted. The rythm of the story telling is very modern. Like flashes. The chapters are not long and they deal with one major character at a time, in a specific location. The reader marvels at the intricacies and complexity of the different lives described throughout the book. "Fortune" is not for the fair hearted or the romantics. The harsh reality of the life of so many people is absolutely well displayed. Impossible to think then : "ah, the good old days !".
Except perhaps for one character ? Or more ?
This is what I truly enjoyed about the reading, Lenny Bartulin is not trying to lead us into his vision of the past, he is telling a fantastic, epic tale !
all opinions are mine, I received a copy from Netgalley.