Namaste folks!
This month the challenge was “One word title”. 😀
This is Sovay by the british writer Celia Rees.
It’s England, 1783. When the rich and beautiful Sovay isn’t sitting for portraits, she’s donning a man’s cloak and robbing travelers—in broad daylight. But in a time when political allegiances between France and England are strained, a rogue bandit is not the only thing travelers fear. Spies abound, and rumors of sedition can quickly lead to disappearances. So when Sovay lifts the wallet of one of England’s most powerful and dangerous men, it’s not just her own identity she must hide, but that of her father. A dazzling historical saga in which the roles of thieves and gentry, good and bad, and men and women are interchanged to riveting effect.
I had this book for a long time on my TBR already because I loved the books Witch Child and Pirates by Celia Rees, but Sovay really can’t hold up with these other great novels.
I have to give Sovay, that the plot idea is really cool, I like these stories with strong women that try to fight against set conventions, and the heroine of this book is certainly a strong character. Hers and the other characters are very well developed, it was fun to get to know them and I liked Sovay. Also, the historical content was very well researched. I love it, when you learn a little something reading historical fiction.
But, and here comes my big BUT: I felt like the writer was a little overambitious writing this book. There are several plot ideas which could have filled easily a triology, but rather were all just stuffed in one novel and in the end no one knows what the heck is going on there. There are plenty of great ideas, but the writer just scrathed the surface and never went on with it and rather presented another plot idea. It’s just messy. Plot ideas lying around everywhere 😛
In the end – I’d give 2 stars out of five
schnitzelmitkaese 