THE SARACEN STORM

I enjoyed this period piece about Spain. It was well written and the story flowed easily. The plot was fast paced.

I've been real lucky lately with my picks for reading. This one is also a good read. That is a particular area of history which hasn't seem much coverage. The only problem I have with it was some odd formatting. That may or may not have been a problem in my tablet. I don't believe it was but you never know. I enjoyed the book. As an added bonus, it encouraged me to look up more about that period of time. There was a tiny bit of language which could be a tad too far in the future. I chose to ignore it because one can get a little too invested in that. I chose to enjoy the book, which I did.

I loved this book. I read alot of historical fiction but this was a time period I'd not read much of before. This made it an extremely good and refreshing read. The character depth and the brilliant way the author wrote this made for a excellent read that I "just read one more chapter" well done!

The Saracen Storm by JM Nunez is a very readable historical novel about the incursion of the Saracens into the Iberia Peninsula in the early 8th Century. The leading character is Pelayo, who at the age of eight is taken to live with his father after his mother dies. We follow him, off and on, for the next 25 years as he maneuvers through a life in which his step-mother and step-brother hate him and make his life a misery, until his father sends him to war against the Saracens. He spends the rest of his life fighting them, sometimes to victory and sometimes not. He is very difficult to kill, although many try. He has enemies and they always seem to find him. He is a good man and a tough soldier who does his best for his family and his country.

This book is loosely based on fact. Many of the major players appear, including his half-brother, Julian, who was a real person, whether Pelayo was or not. There is much in the book that is today considered politically incorrect regarding the Saracens and how bloodthirsty and corrupt they were. The book moved quickly, skipping through repetitive or unimportant parts so that many years were covered. It was a very readable book and was another example of how little loyalty there sometimes was in royal families of the time. I enjoyed it. I recommend it.

I was invited to read a free ARC of The Saracen Storm by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #thesaracenstorm