I tried to get into this novel, but I just did not care for the style of writing so I am giving up before I have to rate it low. Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel.

Let me start by saying that I'm not afraid to tackle "thick" tomes (I am a Diana Gabaldone fan, so I'm familiar with books that run over a thousand pages), but this novel that ran just a bit over five hundred pages, would have been so much better if it ran a bit over three hundred pages. There was so much of the story that was just "filling" that I had no other choice but to "skim" through those pages.

The bones and the structure of the story wasn't bad, but I think the pacing made the story less interesting and appeared to drag at times.

As for the characters, they were all interesting and some were just a bit too over the top, but they kept my interest but by the end, the story wrapped too quickly and left me frustrated.

For me, this read was just okay.

Melanie for b2b

Heavy going. Very oppressive with depressing characters that you just want to shake and tell them to lighten up. Also quite long winded that goes so in depth, especially when they start talking about Religion and God. Typical Taylor Caldwell style, not for the faint hearted!

There’s no doubt this book has its literary faults. It’s overwritten and melodramatic at times. The characters are really too unpleasant to be convincing. And the central premise that one talented child is sacrificed to make money to support his less talented siblings is even less convincing. And yet Taylor Caldwell knows how to grab her readers, pull them in and keep them reading. The novel is a sprawling family saga, where greed (always one of her favourite topics) and personal ambition take precedent over love and compassion, and even if there is some sort of redemption at the end, it’s a pretty brutal tale. And one which I found compelling and ultimately very rewarding. A thoroughly enjoyable and absorbing historical novel, whose faults I was more than happy to overlook for the sake of a jolly good tale.