4 out of 4 stars
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Murder, betrayal, and the entwining of two cultures against a common evil explode into view in Frank Audrain’s novel, Everlasting Spring: Beyond Olympus: Book One, Benjamin & Boudica. As Christianity begins to spread across ancient Brittania, two unlikely people unite against the Roman tyranny that has run rampant across the land. Their goal is to not only to fight this tyranny for a day but for the generations to come.
Benjamin is a young Jewish man who becomes spiritually lost after the murder of his wife. Throughout his travels, Ben is taken in by some wise men that teach him all is not lost and there is a purpose for his life that he had never fathomed. As he begins his quest he meets Queen Boudica, queen of the Iceni Celts, who is also reeling from great loss and tragedy. Sparks begin to fly, driving them down a common pathway to defeat their Roman enemy.
Everlasting Spring: Book One is a well-written and fast paced novel. While it falls into the historical fiction category, it thankfully has quite a few elements that are historically accurate, including many of the secondary characters and battles that occur. The lives of the Biblical characters that appear throughout the novel follow their actual time-lines, with the fictional characters going along for the ride during that part of the novel. Although the Biblical characters have a fairly small part in the story, they make a large impact and it was nice to see that they weren’t just thrown in at random. Both Benjamin and Boudica’s characters are interesting and well rounded, even while suffering great tragedy their perseverance is inspiring. I felt as if I were able to connect with their characters and their mission to defeat the Romans. The dialect is easy to read and flows well throughout the entire novel. If there were any grammar or editing errors, they were so minor that I completely read over them.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel with its action, adventure, and enjoyable characters; I couldn’t find much about it that I didn’t like about it as a whole. However, I was a little taken back by the graphic violence that appeared within the first few chapters, not only battle scenes, but also a scene in which a few of the female characters have been raped and their bodies mutilated. While the rape and mutilation occur prior to us meeting those characters, it was still a little hard to stomach. There were also a few sex scenes that go into a lot more detail than I would have expected, because of the characters discovering the Christian faith, I assumed that the novel would follow along the same lines of Christian fiction that I have read in the past. Due to the sex scenes and graphic violence throughout the novel, I definitely wouldn’t recommend this novel for anyone under the age of eighteen.
While I didn’t care much for the violence and graphic nature in some parts of the novel, the novel as a whole is an excellent and worthwhile read. Even though I didn’t care for those few parts in the novel, I still want to give Everlasting Spring: Beyond Olympus: Book One, Benjamin & Boudica a 4 out of 4 stars. I definitely recommend this novel for mature readers of historical fiction.
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The Everlasting Spring: Beyond Olympus
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. Great job on the review. Congratulations to Frank Audrain on such a high rating.
