Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell

One summer’s day, a dying stranger carrying great wealth in gold comes to the settlement of Ratharryn.
The three sons of Ratharryn’s chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. Saban’ s love for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head. But it is also his skills that will build the vast temple, a place for the gods, certainly, but also a place that will confirm for ever the supreme power of the tribe that built it.

I thought I was going to enjoy this book at first. There was a lot of explanation, a lot of listing of things important and not, but I figured it was the beginning of the book and there needed to be some world building. But it never stopped. There are long paragraphs that describe scenery, or a house, or the building of the temple. It got very tedious, trying to find the plot among all the descriptions.

And to add insult to injury, I didn’t connect to any of the characters. Truthfully, I didn’t like most of them. Even the so-called hero often reacts badly to a situation. Plus, there’s a sort of detachment to Cornwell’s characters; it was the same way in The Last Kingdom. I understand that the story is set a long time ago, but people are people. I wanted to know about who the character was, not so much what he did.




Mount TBR 2017 Book Links

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Lost Girls
2. Hillbilly Elegy
3. Our Revolution
4. Requiem for Athens
5. Dark Angels
6. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
7. The Last Kingdom
8. The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a 50 Year Search
9. And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East
10. Now Face to Face
11. Our Endless Numbered Days
12.Dean and Me: (A Love Story)
13. This Changes Everything
14. Richard III and the Murder in the Tower
15. The Apocalypse
16. The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration, 1966-1999
17. The Snow Child
18. Stonehenge