Without wishing in any way to make this sound like a regular occurrence, my advance copy of James Aitcheson’s new novel ‘The Splintered Kingdom’ arrived in the post this lunchtime.
The series James is writing, is subtitled ‘1066: The Bloody Aftermath’.
I read his previous book (I downloaded it in iBooks on my iPad/iPhone), his first, ‘Sworn Sword’ a while back and thought it was excellent. It was, for me at least, an unusual book in that it was written from the point of view of the conquering Normans, where we English (at least) are used to hearing, seeing and reading stories of the Conquest, from the poor/heroic Saxons‘ side.
‘Sworn Sword’ was, as I hope my review on here and/or Goodreads makes clear, a thoroughly enjoyable, gripping and even thought provoking entry into the Historical Fiction genre by a new, young and extremely talented writer.
But then, I read for pleasure and write reviews on Goodreads because I like to read Historical novels and like to try and encapsulate what I thought of the books I read, for my own pleasure. I keep this blog going for my own pleasure, I don’t expect anyone to read it, apart from those who perhaps key in the addresses they really wanted to visit, wrongly and stumble here by mistake.
Links get posted to Facebook and onto my Twitter account.
James must have seen a Twitter link and re-Tweeted the link to my review.
He then followed me and sent a direct message asking if his publishers, Random House, could send me a pre-release copy of ‘The Splintered Kindgom’ for me to review.
I, of course, said ‘yes’ (when I read the DM he sent me, I actually shouted ‘YES!!!’).
I pointed out that while I would of course love it if they sent me a copy, I live in Denmark. If that was still ok, then send away. It seems it was and the book arrived today.
In one piece too, which isn’t always the case with parcels sent here from the UK.
So, I’m gonna get cracking with the readin’ and the writin’ of the review.
I will be totally honest with what I think of the book – but, let’s face it, it would be a long way to fall in a short time if it isn’t at the same level as ‘Sworn Sword’ – that I can guarantee.
And that’s mainly based on the face that review copy or not, I had actually pre-ordered ‘The Splintered Kingdom’ on Amazon a month ago. So I would have read and reviewed my copy of the book whatever.
Just looks now like some lucky acquaintance/relative will be getting a very nice Christmas present this year.
Photo by Aaron Huber on Unsplash
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