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Sultana A Novel of Moorish Spain edition by Lisa J Yarde Literature Fiction eBooks

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Sultana A Novel of Moorish Spain edition by Lisa J Yarde Literature Fiction eBooks

I downloaded this book because it was free and the description was interesting. When I sat down to read it the first time, I was really not feeling it at all. The first few pages list all the characters and the names are long and too many of them repeat. I ended up reading something else. Then one day I was stuck at the airport and didn't want to spend the time looking for something new so I opened this novel and began reading. By the time I landed after a 3 hour flight, I was hooked. The author makes you feel like you're actually there witnessing all the events. What I find fascinating is that the events are all real and the characters actually existed. I skipped the Characters section at the beginning of each book and found that it wasn't really necessary to know the characters in advance. I did go back and review the list once I finished the books and found it more useful then. I'm really glad I gave this book a second chance as it has given me the opportunity to explore a period of history that I knew nothing about. I have also read the second and third novels in this series and I'm anxiously waiting the release of the 4th novel.


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Sultana A Novel of Moorish Spain edition by Lisa J Yarde Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews

There was so much intrigue, but also love. Sometimes it was a little hard to keep secondary characters straight, but all of the characters were well developed and had depth. I hadn't planned to read the sequel, but now I absolutely HAVE to! So much happened in this book, people being killed that I didn't expect would, alliances that didn't make sense at first. This is a rich book well worth reading.
This story takes place during the 13th century in Moorish Spain. It was great to read a HF novel of that unique setting. Granada is the home of the Sultana. She is married off at the age of 9 to the nephew of her grandfather by tradition, but against her will. It is an interesting and fast paced novel with treason and murder and constantly changing alliances during this time of civil war. I was pleased to find a fair amount of background information about the time period, the wars and the people in an appendix. I will definitely read the sequel, Sultana's Legacy.
Firstly, my declaration I downloaded this on free days. However, I may have bought this regardless, as I do enjoy fictionalised history done well (and my gauge is Barrie Unsworth's collection of books). It is always my policy to give constructive feedback and the star system makes this hard to do without offending the writer. Some of the faults in the book are caused by 's messy formatting (all writers seem to have problems whether they have paid an editor or not) and I am not judging the story on that aspect at all even though it was extremely challenging to read. Note that chapters are uneven, headings are all over the place, clumps of words are slammed together without spaces and gratuitous gaps occur where they should not be at all. needs a good revamp!

My comments relate to the story. The historical bare bones are good and the glossary at the end is helpful. Putting the cast notes at the start is a bad move, though, as all indices would be more useful had they been organised in the one place at the end of the story with embedded links to it throughout the version. I was not fond of the chapter headings either as I think it is more effective in a story to unfold the passing of time as part of the sense of time rather than date it. It would have been quite easy to say something like 'after three Ramadans had passed' rather than caption the story as they do in low-budget or badly-written films! It is quite hard to remember that information anyway without continually cross-referencing unless you have built it into the story and made it mean something. A map of the region also may have helped those of us who enjoy visual prompts. The family tree in 'War and Peace' is another good reference that may be of use to the author in her next work. But at the end of the book, please! Just a 'contents' note at the start would suffice.

For me, right from the start, the characters and their personal tales became very muddled. I had to fight to get to the end and found that the nomenclature was quite confusing.

Worse still was the language used as it was inconsistent and became annoying. It mixed common contemporary down-market terms with olde-worlde attempts at capturing the Arabic syntax. Fatima's impetuous character was often expressed in what I felt was pure silliness. eg. "Fatima plunked her spoon in the center of the dessert." This appears to be the author's own way of speaking over-taking the voice of the book, the period speech being put aside, and it just stalls the narrative. It sometimes seemed as though Fatima was a modern-day Muslim girl who had taken a trip in Dr. Who's Tardis. She always appeared to be incongruous and never was a girl who had been brought up with the social and religious conditioning that we were expected to believe. Somehow, the writer mostly ignored this with just a couple of token prayers being uttered and no explanation of why the feuding groups had such a deep-seated hatred of one other.

The characters were not particularly engaging. I didn't find myself being enthralled by their journeys and cross-links and a lot of the problem was due to many odd and convoluted sentence constructions, inconsistently executed in ways that made me re-read and become confused.

This appears more to be a bare-bones list of historical events that have been fleshed out with Harlequin-style romance rather that making us visualise the time/place/events and of course, the politics of the time. What does it mean to invade? To conquer? To win/lose? What is gained and lost? The pictures of the defenders were missing. There was little or no motivation for the battles - they were just ordered, happened, were bloody and then over. On the other hand, there were many redundant details of clothing and decor which could have been whittled down in a clever précis.

While the cover is very eye-catching and appealing, I was sorry to say that the narrative, understanding of the historical context and language really disappointed me and the story suffered as a result.
I have read a number of books in the past 6 months that are set in the middle ages, around the time of the crusades. This is the first book I've read that comes from an Islamic, Moorish point of view. I enjoyed reading about the culture of the Moors during this time period. Fatima is a moorish princess who becomes a Sultana. She is married at a young age to a man her father chooses. She is a strong heroine for whom I felt great empathy. This is a well researched book. Although the pace slowed sometimes, I was engaged until the end. This is part of my subscription.
I loved this book. Sultana is a beautifully written, magic-carpet ride through thirteenth century Gharnatah (Granada), then Moorish Spain. The suspenseful plot moves the reader along among love, lust and wars. The characters are real and engaging, Yarde’s writing is lush, yet pleasant to read, and perfect for the topic she is writing about. Thoroughly researched, Ms. Yarde places the reader in the time and place and opened my eyes into the world of Islamic Spain. This is what a good historical novel should do.
I can’t wait to read the sequel!
This novel was a bit.... bland. The descriptions were a bit flat. The plot was a little plodding. The characters were a bit dull. There was nothing wrong with the writing, in fact it flowed very nicely, but it just didn't tell a compelling story with immersive details like I'd have expected from a historical romance. I didn't feel like I was in the story with the characters, looking at what they saw, hearing what they did. I just couldn't quite get into their world and their heads. It was far to easy to put this down and come back to it, and put it down again.
I downloaded this book because it was free and the description was interesting. When I sat down to read it the first time, I was really not feeling it at all. The first few pages list all the characters and the names are long and too many of them repeat. I ended up reading something else. Then one day I was stuck at the airport and didn't want to spend the time looking for something new so I opened this novel and began reading. By the time I landed after a 3 hour flight, I was hooked. The author makes you feel like you're actually there witnessing all the events. What I find fascinating is that the events are all real and the characters actually existed. I skipped the Characters section at the beginning of each book and found that it wasn't really necessary to know the characters in advance. I did go back and review the list once I finished the books and found it more useful then. I'm really glad I gave this book a second chance as it has given me the opportunity to explore a period of history that I knew nothing about. I have also read the second and third novels in this series and I'm anxiously waiting the release of the 4th novel.