Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Of Honest Fame by M.M. Bennetts Review


Book Description:
On a summer night in 1812, a boy sets fire to a house in Paris before escaping over the rooftops. Carrying vital intelligence about Napoleon’s Russian campaign, he heads for England. But landing in Kent, he is beaten almost to death. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, is desperate for the boy’s information. He is even more desperate, however, to track down the boy’s assailant – a sadistic French agent who knows far too much about Castlereagh’s intelligence network. Captain George Shuster is a veteran of the Peninsula, an aide-de-camp to Wellington, now recalled from the continent and struggling to adjust to civilian life. Thomas Jesuadon is a dissolute, living on the fringes of society, but with an unrivalled knowledge of the seamy underside of the capital. Setting out to trace the boy’s attacker, they journey from the slums of London to the Scottish coast, following a trail of havoc, betrayal, official incompetence and murder. It takes an unlikely encounter with a frightened young woman to give them the breakthrough that will turn the hunter into the hunted. Meanwhile, the boy travels the breadth of Europe in the wake of the Grande Armee, witnessing at first hand the ruination they leave behind and the awful price of Napoleon’s ambition. This companion to M.M. Bennetts’s brilliant debut, May 1812, is a gripping account of deception, daring and determination, of intelligence and guile pitted against brutality. Bennetts brings to vivid life the harrowing devastation wrought on the civilian populations of Europe by Napoleon’s men, and the grit, courage and tenacity of those who stood against them.





About The Author:
  Educated at Boston University and St Andrews, M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in the economic, social and military history of Napoleonic Europe. The author is a keen cross-country and dressage rider, as well as an accomplished pianist, regularly performing music of the era as both a soloist and accompanist. Bennetts is a long-standing book critic for The Christian Science Monitor.
The author is married and lives in England.

Visit the Authors Website:
www.mmbennetts.com
Facebook:
May 1812

~My Review~
This was such a great book! I'm a little biased when it comes to historical fiction because it's my all-time favorite genre to read.  However, the characters are truly captivating and memorable and very historically accurate to the time period. I know some of you might find historical fiction boring to say the least, but Of Honest Fame is different. It's one of those 'can't put down' books that makes you wish that you were actually there.

I love the fact that it had such a hold on me that I did a little bit of research on the time period.
What did I find?
That it was very accurate! I want you guys to do your own research so I didn't want to give anything away :).
Final Thoughts:
Please M.M. Bennetts give us another!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for stopping by my blog on Monday's Cornucopia of Blog Hops!
    I'm now following you!
    Have a great day!
    ~Erika
    Musings from a Stay At Home Mom

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for the wonderful review today, Katie! I added a smidgeon of it to M's tour page at http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2010/10/14/of-honest-fame-virtual-book-tour-november-december-10/. Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete

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