Richard Blake (1)

Rubbish. Some of take on the history of 7th century of the East Roman Empire is interesting but the central character and his daring do is just ridiculous ... apart from male male sexual attraction which is just a matter of fact here.

I had to stop reading this after getting about half way through it. With one exception (who's killed off early in the book), the characters in this book are entirely amoral and unsympathetic. I could have accepted this but the deal-breaker for me was the rampant use of anachronisms throughout the book. I think it extremely unlikely that early 7th century Romans would have spoken in this fashion.