Rebels and Traitors - Hardcover

Davis, Lindsey

3.47

569 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846056322 ISBN 13: 9781846056321

Publisher: Century, 2009

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A groundbreaking historical novel set in the English Civil War.

Rebels and Traitors is a groundbreaking departure for this most admired of British authors, returning to Lindsey Davis’ first love in historical fiction, the English Civil War. Sweeping in scope and fraught with the same drama and passion, her epic novel does the same for this conflict as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind did for the American Civil War.

The book tells with startling realism what it was like to have fought in the front line of the battles and politics of the era. Through the story of a man and a woman, Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, caught on opposite sides of the Parliamentarian/Royalist divide but fated to be brought together by adversity, loss and mutual attraction. But before this can happen, the terrible events of the seven years that King Charles waged war on his own people must be endured, culminating the day in January 1649 when the world was turned upside down and the King was executed. It is in this crucible that Gideon’s and Juliana’s love will be forged.

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About the Author:

Lindsey Davis has written twenty novels, beginning with The Course of Honour, in her bestselling mystery series featuring first century detective Marcus Didius Falco. The series has won her international acclaim.

From Booklist:

Davis’ hefty, ambitious epic of the English Civil War and Commonwealth of the mid–seventeenth century, more serious-minded than her Falco mysteries of ancient Rome, depicts this tumultuous era from the earliest rumblings against Charles I’s divine-right monarchy through plottings against Cromwell’s Protectorate two decades later. The perspective switches among three people whose paths occasionally cross: Juliana Lovell, a Royalist wife and mother struggling with poverty, thanks to her husband’s absences; Gideon Jukes, a London printer’s apprentice who joins Parliament’s New Model Army; and a teenage vagabond girl. The most exciting scenes dramatize events from their lives, such as the devastation wrought by the cavalier army’s brutal advance into Birmingham. The immense amount of background detail sometimes integrates well with the fictional characters’ stories, though generally it’s piled on thickly. Devotees of the period will appreciate its authentic depiction and the breadth of coverage; everyone else will learn much about politics, military actions, social movements, religious sects, and the daily life of ordinary people as alliances shift, groups splinter off, and the meaning of treason changes. --Sarah Johnson

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