Powerful and fiercely evocative.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy.

I think that for some readers this book may be necessary, but for this reader it just made me very sad. I guess it depends whether the reader already knows this part of history, or whether the information contained in this book is new.
As for the story, SPOILER, I just found the ending too sad. But perhaps it was this that made it realistic.

This was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it. thanks for letting me have an advance copy. I'm new to this author.

What Van Reet does right and has clear knowledge of is war. He brilliantly conveys the chaos, the confusion and the raw nature of combat and attention to detail.

One complaint would be that there are far too many switches in points of view, we have first person narrators, third person narrative, and it gets a bit confusing and requires a lot of attention to be able to keep up.

The plot was interesting, well researched, and some great character development. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

This novel is set in the Iraq war of 2003 and follows Cassandra Wigheard a 19-year-old American soldier who has joined the US Army two years previously to escape from her chaotic, poverty-stricken family. The book starts right in the action when she is in the middle of an attack.
Abu al-Hool is a middle-aged Egyptian from a wealthy family who has been fighting with the mujahideen in various fields of conflict in the Islamic world, initially against the Russians in Afghanistan and now in Iraq. HIs group captures and holds Cassandra, due to a mistake by another low ranking soldier Sleed and some of his colleagues while they search for loot in an abandoned palace.

Cassandra is faced with impossible decisions and extreme mental and physical challenges. Meanwhile, Abu al-Hool is disturbed by the increasingly extreme methods of his resistance group, with their new commitment to violent video propaganda and forced conversions.

Cassandra's story is an interesting perspective on the unique challenges of being a woman in a war zone. Her captors see her as a valuable prize and there are obvious additional risks for a woman being held prisoner by a group of men, particularly a group of men with preconceived notions about Western women, and yet at the start of the book she also reflects on a brutal attack on another woman soldier by her own fellow soldiers - none of whom were caught and with whom Cassandra might easily be friends.

Van Reet is adept at evoking the sights, sounds and smells of a desert war, as well as the banality of the soldiers' boredom and the chilling ways in which ordinary people, whether they're soldiers, rebels or simply civilians caught up the chaos, can find themselves in extraordinary situations. It's a short, tense read and certainly kept me turning the pages

This book is written from multiple points of view and told in both the first person and the third person. It could have been complicated and confusing. Instead, it was enlightening.

I would say it feels real but as I never have been in the situation myself it would be presumptuous to assume. What I can say is that the writing makes me feels as though I am there with Cassandra and the others.

It is not an easy book to read. But then it is not an easy subject to write about. Books like this help us understand what is happening in the area and how our interference only makes matters worse.

It hardly seems possible that this is Mr Van Reet's first novel. It is masterful. His talent shines like a beacon and I look forward to reading more by this writer.

I'm sorry to say that this book was not for me. I hadn't come across this author before so I wanted to try it out. I would imagine its just that I read a somewhat different genre. Nothing to do with the author

A really gripping thriller that kept me guessing until the very last page. I loved it. Would recommend!

This was a fast-paced and hard-hitting book that felt frighteningly authentic. I enjoyed the prose and story so much that I bought the signed Goldsboro special edition as soon as I'd finished it. If you're looking for a complex and thought-provoking war story, then I highly recommend this.

Intriguing mixing of view points during early occupation of Baghdad, showing the humanity on all sides. Powerful stuff

A riveting story of the conflict in Iraq through the eyes of a female US soldier and a parallel story of an Arab mujahadeen. fighter. The descriptions of the places and are excellent and give a real feel of time and place. A worthwhile read

I really struggled with this novel's pace to begin with. I usually give a book 100 pages and if I'm not enjoying it Ill stop. I very almost did this with Spoils as I felt it was just so slow to get going. I am glad I stayed with it though as it really did pick up and I really enjoyed the latter half. I didn't review it online as I wasn't sure if I could recommend it or not with that beginning. I very much enjoyed a female soldier perspective and once it got going it had me gripped but I almost didn't get there.

This book is vivid, fierce and gripping. Such an intimate account of warfare life is not what I would usually read, but I found myself wrapped up in it all the same. I’m glad I took a chance on this book, and I would recommend others do the same.

With a narrative full of highly emotive scenes and issues, Brian Van Reet's debut novel focuses predominantly on three US soldiers; Gunner Cassandra Wigheard, Sargent McGinnis, and Private Crump, who have been taken captive after an ambush near Baghdad at the start of the Iraq war.

Utilising the personal perspectives and distinctly recognisable, memorable voices of Wigheard, Sleed and the mujahideen Abu al-Hool, it is the thought processes, psychological behaviour and relationships between the captives and the jihadi terrorists that are the main focus of Spoils rather than explosive action scenes.

The captives are subjected to horrifying ordeals, held in dark, solitary confinement, they undergo unrelenting psychological torment and physical torture. Fully aware that there can only be one outcome at the hands of the terrorists, that of their impending execution, it is heart rending to bear witness to the suffering and their resignation of their fate.  During the course of her captivity Wigheard at the mercy of one of her captors is repeatedly humiliated, dehumanised and brutalised. I found Cassandra's narrative, the only voice in the third person, particularly disturbing, and at times so unbearable that I found her account suffocating and intensely distressing to read.

Abu al-Hool is a highly complex individual whose narrative is philosophical, retrospective and perhaps a little melancholic as he begins to question his religious and personal moral beliefs. He becomes increasingly concerned about the new direction in which the mujahideen brotherhood are being steered towards at the direction of the merciless Dr Walid. A direction he does not believe is the right path.

Tank driver Sleed should have been with his unit at the time of the ambush, instead he was acquiring some valuable 'spoils of war' from Saddam's Palace.  We accompany him as he, during the course of the book, tracks down his missing combatants.

Brian Van Reet has first hand combat experiences to draw upon for this powerful piece of fiction rendering it an intensely humane story, giving credible authenticity to the plot, and scenes presented to the reader.  It also demonstrates the complex and conflicting issues presented to everyone involved in the theatre of war, from the US combatants to the Iraqi people they are there to help.  What he also does all to well, and possibly not agreeable to every reader, is make a case for the terrorist's humanity as he imagines the moral and personal internal dialogue going on and how difficult it is to distinguish between a good person from a bad one due to their religious beliefs.

Spoils does have its moments of humor and bravado as displayed during dialogue between Crump and his colleagues which felt reminiscent of 'Generation Kill' written by Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright about his experience with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As the story progressed and the mood darkened, 'Green on Blue', another excellent debut novel, told entirely through the eyes of a young Afghan boy by Elliot Ackerman, who himself spent five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan came to mind.

Enlightening, thought provoking and hauntingly mesmerising, I cannot recommend Spoils highly enough to anyone interested in novels about war and conflict.

This is not my normal genre of book but I thought it looked interesting. Told from mainly two POV, we follow a US soldier Cassandra as she fights in Iraq and is ultimately captured, along with two colleagues. Their lives hang in the balance, complicated by infighting and power struggles amongst their captors. The other POV is given by Abu al-Hool, one of the captors who has recently been usurped as emir.
Cassandra and Abu do not really come into contact but the events are relayed in such a way that we get to see how complicated the situation is in the Middle East. For both main characters their ideas and views are brought into question and doubts emerge about what they are doing.
I found this book disturbing and a bit disheartening, it's hard to see any prospect of a solution to such radicalisation.
My thanks to netgalley for this copy.

A great story, well written and, a unique depiction of the war. I really liked and enjoyed the interaction between the two main characters. The real cost of the war to everyone is weighted, including how the two different perspectives are really on the same continuum. I would recommend this work.

I failed to finish reading this book. It was confusing flip-flopping chapter to chapter in different times and different beliefs. I understand what the author was trying to achieve, and I am sure it is a super book for those who can follow it. Not an 'easy reading' novel.

This was a book I couldn’t read at night as I suspected I would have bad dreams. Not because it was gory or anything or with too much horror – I read those types of books all the time. But because this was about a real war – the Iraq war, which I knew too much about and had always been against, and it re-emphasised that it was always the Grunts of whichever side, that really felt the horrors. And I remember all too clearly the be-heading of US servicemen being filmed and distributed on TV – not that I could watch it but...

So this is a book to be read before you join the military. Before you think war is all glory and medals. If you are  not going to be a Captain or  above, you are going to be on the front line – and we all remember all too clearly what happens to the front line – it gets blown up by rockets, it goes across IEDs, it gets shot at by missiles and Uzis and.... all this in the most appalling living conditions you can imagine, for weeks on end.

Too realistic to be a story that you can say that you enjoyed reading, but yet a story that should be read.

A powerful read. Deeply disturbing at times but painfully tells the story of a soldier kidnapped in Iraq and a mujahideen having a crisis of confidence. Both are trapped in circumstances not really of their making, and coping in the best way the can. It doesn't really try to explain the rights an wrongs bu just telling it the way it is. Totally tragic and ultimately useless on all sides

There have been hundreds of books written on the Iraq war but few will provide you with the grim reality of "Spoils". In this novel we are drawn deeply into the war in microcosm. We get to know the crew of an American armoured patrol vehicle as well as a small band of mujahideen. By focussing his story on this small grouping of people Van Reet brings across both the horror and futility of the war. There are no winners, only losers and that is a grim, but perhaps real, message that can be taken from all warfare. Thoroughly worth reading but be prepared for a gritty and authentic read.