3 out of 4 stars
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Apollo's Raven, by Linnea Tanner; is a Historical Fiction base in the time when Ancient Britannia was occupied by the Roman Empire. This book delves into a rather unknown period in history and keeps you enthralled with its intricate details; making it very easy to visualize it right before your eyes. Following a Romeo and Juliet type love through their world of extraordinary magic, political twists and turns that keep you guessing, as well as a curse that could destroy the world they know.
We fall right in the middle of an ongoing political bargaining that if not handled with care, could lead to war, slavery and death. Our lead Juliet, named Catrin; is the youngest daughter of one of the more powerful Celtic Trible leaders, and a warrior in her own right. When a Roman senator and his strikingly handsome son come to her village for what seems to be a peace keeping that is under negotiations. When it is made aware that her father's son from his first marriage is trying to lay clam with the Romans to be next in line to lead her people, things just go downhill from there when the handsome Roman has a knife put to his throat. After she steps in to save his life, the leaders agree to a meeting but need collateral. It's agreed Catrin's oldest sister will go with the Romans and the senator's son will stay with them. Her father convinces her to get all the information she can out of their "guest" by any means necessary; including, seduction if she feels it needs to go to that level. Now with mystical powers that she doesn't know how to control and a horrific curse looming over her head. Who can she trust?
Our Romeo of this story is Marcellus, son of Roman Senator Lucius Antonius, and great-grandson of Mark Antony. He has a budding fear that he will die young like his ancestor before him which makes him feel like he also has to live up to his father's expectations. When the negotiations or rather the review of sorts, fails to impress his father, he agrees to stay behind as the Celtic's "guest" which makes his father even more furious. While staying, he is escorted around the village by Catrin and is rather disturbed by some of the customs. However, as time passes; he starts to feel more at home there then with his father. Marcellus though, seems even more torn by it because his father also gave him instructions to get information out of the princess. In doing so he falls even more for the forbidden love and even deeper into the world of magic that could take more than just his life, his very soul. With war, politics and horrifying pasts trying to be unearthed; this story is full of love and uncertainty of who is telling the truth and who is following demanding orders from their ruling fathers and nations. Who is being true and should they stay true to their people or to themselves? Read this book and you will find out, for I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone.
I can't truly describe how fascinated I am with the depth the author went into to this story. It really did feel like this was something that had happened in history and just felt real. Hard to think a book with such magic ingrained into the story could be realistic; but with how each character reacted to situations and to each other it was, as stated before, real. I don't want to give away too much when it comes to how the story works but the magic that the Celtic people contain is memorizing in a rather horrific way. If you know anything about the Celtic history, sacrifice and I'll say "class visuals" are common place. Then throw in the religious aspects of both the Celtic and Roman people to blend and clash as they will, depending on the people "interpreting" them; and the never-ending twists and turns of political intrude and everyone's own agendas. I was please to the point I was actually saying out loud to the characters "No! Don't do that!" Something that I don't do. A little humorous to me considering I was just saying I was telling the characters not to do something. Oh well.
As much I genuinely enjoyed this book one of the major things that kept me from really diving into the book was the authors use of more modern terminology in a world that is based in the Roman time period and in ancient Britain. To get my point across correctly a few of the words used were: wench, shenanigans and numbskull. Pretty sure these words or terms were not in this time in history. It was rather disheartening to be taken out of the book when one of these words/descriptions would come up. With the intensity and understanding the author put into the realism I was disappointingly surprised when they would pop up. Granted they weren't all over the book but they were there all the same. It also felt kind of if anything else could go wrong then it did but not to the point of an endless "series of unfortunate events" kind of thing at least. I will add one last thing that was a little disturbing was the detail of a form of a bestiality moment in the book that I would warn about. The bodies may have been animals but the mind of one was still human so a warning and something I would feel wasn't fully necessary.
Overall, I rate Apollo's Raven by Linnea Tanner, 3 out of 4 stars. Even though the book does seem professionally edited I only gave it a three based on the more modern terms that seemed to take away from the story itself; if those instances were fixed it would allow the reader to truly stay in the story. Though, if you're a sucker for a decent romance with a great depth into the world they live than I would recommend this novel that seems to come out of the mist itself with intrigue and life.
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Apollo's Raven
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