Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Review and Giveaway: Road from the West by Roseanne Lortz



Title: Road from the West
Author: Roseanne Lortz
Publisher: Madison Street Publishing
Publish Date: September 2, 2011
Source: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours







Why You're Reading This Book:

  • You like adventure stories.
  • You're in the mood for an epic historical fiction.
What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Haunted by guilt from the past and nightmares of the future, a young Norman named Tancred takes the cross and vows to be the first to free Jerusalem from the infidels. As he journeys to the Holy Land, he braves vast deserts, mortal famine, and the ever-present ambushes of the enemy Turks—but the greatest danger of all is deciding which of the Crusader lords to trust. A mysterious seer prophesies that Tancred will find great love and great sorrow on his journey, but the second seems intent on claiming him before he can find the first. Intrigues and passions grow as every battle brings the Crusaders one step closer to Jerusalem. Not all are destined to survive the perilous road from the West."

My Two Cents:


The Crusade was a Pope and Catholic sanctioned Christian takeover of Jerusalem. This book is the first in a trilogy that covers the first Crusade. Tancred, a young warrior, is told by Pope Urban if he fights in the Crusade, all of Tancred's sins will be absolved. Tancred really doesn't like playing by the rules but he wants to make his previous troubles go away.

I had never read any fictional books about the Crusade. I thought it was really interesting to see the Crusade from the perspective of the people who were fighting to boot the pagans out of the Holy City of Jerusalem. You can see from Tancred's perspective alone that people fought in the Crusades for all sorts of reasons. Some did fight because they believed they had a religious duty to remove the pagans from the Holy Land. Other fought for more selfish reasons. I guess I didn't realize that there was such a broad range of reasons for people to fight.


One of the things that I liked about this book is that although it takes place during a war, there isn't a lot of time spent on the battles themselves. The book covers more of the behind the scenes of what's going on. It talks more about what people were thinking as they marched towards the unknown. To me, this was way more interesting than a bunch of battle sequences.


Bottom line: This was a great adventure story with an interesting perspective.






Giveaway:


Thanks to the author and publisher, one lucky reader of A Bookish Affair will win a copy of Road from the West. 


Rules:
- You must be 13 and over
-  Open internationally
- You must be a follower of A Bookish Affair

Just fill out this really easy form here and you're entered!
  
Follow the Rest of the Tour:



Friday, September 2nd

Monday, September 5th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at The Maiden's Court

Tuesday, September 6th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at From the TBR Pile 

Wednesday, September 7th

Review at The Calico Critic

Thursday, September 8th

Review at Unabridged Chick

Monday, September 12th

Review at Broken Teepee

Tuesday, September 13th

Author Interview & Giveaway at Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, September 14th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Broken Teepee

Friday, September 16th

Tuesday, September 20th

Wednesday, September 21st

Review & Giveaway at A Bookish Affair

Thursday, September 22nd

Author Guest Post at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Monday, September 26th

Tuesday, September 27th

Wednesday, September 28th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at Just One More Paragraph

Thursday, September 29th

Friday, September 30th

Review at By the By Books

Monday, October 3rd

Review & Giveaway at Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesday, October 4th

Author Interview at The Musings of a Book Junkie

Wednesday, October 5th

Review & Giveaway at Bippity Boppity Book

Thursday, October 6th

Review at A Few More Pages

Friday, October 7th

Monday, October 10th

Tuesday, October 11th

Author Interview & Giveaway at The Owl Bookmark Blog

Wednesday, October 12th

Thursday, October 13th

Review at Words and Peace

Friday, October 14th

Review at Reviews by Molly

Monday, October 17th

Review at Erin Reads

Tuesday, October 18th

Author Interview at Reviews by Molly

Wednesday, October 19th

Thursday, October 20th

Author Guest Post & Giveaway at The True Book Addict

4 comments:

  1. I have been meaning to read this one, I love reading about the Crusades, they really are fascinating. I don't like a lot of detailed battle scenes in books either so I think I will like this one. Thanks for the review!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I enjoyed reading your "two cents"! I finished Road from the West not long ago and am scheduled later on the tour. I thought it was a really good piece of historical fiction.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Erin I'm interested to see where the other books in the series go!

    ReplyDelete

Hi! Welcome to A Bookish Affair. If you leave a comment, I will try to either reply here or on your site!

As of 6/6/2011, this book is now an awards free zone. While I appreciate the awards, I would rather stick to reviewing more great books for you than trying to fill the requirements.

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