I liked Robert Harris'
Pompeii. I read it in a few days, enjoyed it, and found the story to be well written. But - there is a but - it could be boring at times. It was definitely not the 5* read I had expected it to be. Anyway, I loved the ancient setting in the Roman city of Pompeii with all it's hustlers, decadent senators, prostitutes, slaves and gladiators. The main character is the young engineer Marcus, who has travelled from Rome to take over the job as water-engineer in the area around Pompeii. He soon discovers that something is wrong, and the story takes place on those the last days of Pompeii. Will Marcus get out of the city before the volcano erupts? Will he be able to save the girl he can't stop thinking about? Will he find out what happened to the missing water-engineer of Pompeii? The novel is full of interesting questions plus a good deal of 'lessons' about volcanoes, earthquakes and so on. A fairly good read, entertaining.
This wonderful image of a street in the ruins of ancient Pompeii is by the flickr user
Senex Prime.
This is my post # 27 in the
NaBloPoMo-challenge. See my page
here.
6 comments:
Only a few days to go! Thanks for the review. I read Harris's Imperium and really loved it. I've been meaning to read more of his books.
Yeah I know, just a few more days :o) I have heard many good things about Imperium, so I may put that on my TBR-list. I have also been meaning to read more of his books, but this one wasn't exactly as I had expected, so maybe I'll wait a couple of months. Its not that I haven't got enough books to read already :o)
Thanks for stopping by my post and wishing your American blog pal a Happy Thanksgiving! :D
Icedream, you are most welcome.
Thanks for the review! A friend of my had read it and said the same thing. But it sounds interesting.
Morgan, thanks for your comment. It is worth a read, I guess it just really didn't live up to my expectations. I have visited Pompeii myself three times and love the place and my image of how it was back then wasn't presented in the book. LOL. But hardly the writer's fault I guess.
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