H. G. Parry (Author), Andrew Kingston (Narrator) –16.03.22
I loved The Unlikely Adventures of Uriah Heep so much that I bought this second novel by H. G. Perry as an audiobook and couldn’t wait to start listening.
Well, all I can say is that that is 21 hours of my life I’ll never get back! What a different experience. I found it a real drudge to get through. The book takes real historical figures (Pitt The Younger and Wilberforce among others) in the context of the fight for and against the abolition of slavery as well as the French Revolution, and added in the extra element of magic.
In this world, there are vampires and magicians and ghosts, and magical ability is forbidden among ‘commoners’ and given fairly free rein in the aristocracy, furthering the inequalities highlighted and fought against in that period of history.
This sounds like just my cup of tea, so why didn’t l like it? Hmm, I liked bits of it, but it was just so long and lots of it read like a history textbook.
There was plenty of food for thought, but I think it would have been better at half the length.
Sarah Wray Writer 