When the Norse raiders arrive in the English village, Raven, the young outsider who was found two years before with no memory, realizes that he speaks their language. He is drawn to them and he joins them in their quest for glory, plunder, and battle.

After a slow start, the plot moves along with enough fighting to hold one's interest. Aside from Raven, the characters are poorly drawn, with little to dis­tin­guish or motivate them.

Willie Dunne is the innocent 18-year-old son of a senior Dublin policeman, who promptly joins the Royal Dublin Fusiliers when the First World War breaks out, along with thousands of other Irishmen. Their early optimism that the war will be over by Christmas 1914 is soon crushed as both sides get bogged down in the trench warfare of the Western Front. Four long, brutal years of stalemate in the killing fields of Flanders follow, and much of Willie's regiment die during …continue.

Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles is a series of novels about King Arthur and Camelot in a post-Roman Britain. This book tells how Lancelot (Clothar the Frank) came to Camulod and met Arthur—and it takes the entire book to get to that point. Only after several hundred pages of Clothar's childhood and early manhood and fighting a civil war in his uncle's small kingdom in Gaul, do we proceed to Britain.

As with Uther and other books in the series, I found Whyte to be …continue.

Danny Boyle is growing up in Dublin in the 1960s and 1970s, watched over by his grand­moth­er. First as she raises him, then from beyond the grave. Danny, as his parents did before him, is making a mess of his life, and he's a small-time drug dealer with some big problems.

I grew up in Dublin, about a decade behind Danny Boyle, so I enjoyed Murphy's evocation of Dublin in the 1970s. However, I disliked his constant changing of viewpoint and frequent hopping back and forth …continue.

Sequel to The Yellow Admiral.

Sequel to The Commodore.

The Napoleonic wars are drawing to a close. Jack Aubrey is beset with legal problems on land and Stephen Maturin's fortune has been seized by the Spanish au­thor­i­ties. They are sent to sea to be part of the blockade of the French port of Brest, where they are in disfavor with the admiral leading the blockade.

Perhaps the slowest of the Aubrey-Maturin books, it ends with Napoleon being exiled to Elba and then the news that Napoleon has escaped.

Badger Jenkins is a shy, unassuming NASCAR driver with chiseled cheekbones and a rabid fanbase. He's recruited to drive for the first otherwise-all-female team. For several months, we follow Badger and several of the women who work in the crew or behind the scenes, as the team coalesces and the season progresses.

This is an en­ter­tain­ing and well-written look at NASCAR racing from the per­spec­tive of insiders. We learn a great deal about the sport and what it takes to run a NASCAR team. We also get to see Badger …continue.

Every Man Dies Alone was published in German in 1947, and became a “surprise best­seller” after it was translated into English in 2009. It's a novel of the little-known German resistance against the Nazis, loosely based on true events.

Otto and Anna Quangel are apolitical, middle-aged, working class Berliners, who become rad­i­cal­ized after the death of their son early in the War. Otto starts writing seditious postcards and dropping them in public buildings, hoping to foment unrest. The Gestapo grow furiouser as this goes on for two years, and …continue.