Another one book month. I hope to pick up the pace in May since I’ll be out of school. But we’ll see.

The Fallon Blood

Reagan O’Neal

The author of this book is actually by Robert Jordan, who wrote my favorite fantasy series the Wheel of Time. I stumbled on this in a used book store and thought I would give it a try. There is a lot to recommend about this historical adventure/romance. It moves quickly and has some vibrant characters. It also has an odd mix of historical accuracy and the pulpiest possible romance. I mean, women can’t help but fall into bed with the protagonist, though it takes a good 100 pages for the book to make him even seem charming. All of its characters are supposed to seem flawed, but it is more like there are good men and men who are absolute unrepentant monsters and every woman is kind of awful. They are not awful for the same reason, but they are all awful in some way.

It also tries to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to slavery. Telling a story set in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War it is a subject that must come up. At first it tries to set up the protagonist as being some kind of anti-slavery anomaly, but then his wife makes some unforgivable decisions for him, so it’s not his fault. The worst part of this particular thread is I can’t tell if the book his highlighting how awful the decision the protagonists made or supposed to be making us empathize with them over how hard it is to choose to enslave people. I fear it is the latter. Still, that issue aside, the book is mostly a fun romp. That being said, I don’t think I am going to do much work to track down its sequels.