First off, the cover is
beautiful! Caught my attention immediately and the typesetting is good.
The story is set in ancient
Rome. Ares accepts a challenge to spend a month as a human gladiator in Rome.
The Olympian gods devised the challenge to prove the Romans weren’t as mighty
as they (the Romans) thought. Ares’s first act to gain some gladiator glory
came in the form of a reenactment of Sabines.
The story flows, although I
would definitely recommend boning up on Roman history and Greek mythology so
the characters make sense. I am a history buff so I rate it five stars. The
author paints an almost tangible picture—as I read, I could see the gladiators
in the Coliseum.
The wrench in the works
comes dressed as a woman named Eirana, one of many women enslaved by the
Romans. This was almost predictable. Typical
guy-meets-forbidden-girl-and-must-rescue-her scenario.
Due to the setting, it
didn’t come off as cliché as I expected, which was a very pleasant surprise.
Even with my penchant for
mythology and general enjoyment of the supernatural, it took me four chapters
to really get “into” this book. While the action is fantastic and the scenes
are well-written, had I judged it by the very beginning, I would probably not
have finished.
Overall I rate this novel
three out of five stars, because without a background in mythology the story
would be hard to follow. Readable but definitely within the niche of history
and mythology buffs who don’t mind a slow build.
3 Pens
-Rani Titali
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