I've read 100 books in 3 years but never have I found a book so ... so interminable. It's a potboiler sequel to Henry Esmond that made me wonder if inconsequential plot churn like this is really so much better than a soap like Downton Abbey. It is of course because it is so well written - which mean

This novel might almost be studied as a group of portraits of the slighter nobility of England and the gentry of Virginia. The author shows us numerous portraits: a tyrannical mother who is the head of a great Colonial estate; her two sons, one to become a great soldier under Washington, the other a

A brilliant 1000 page novel follow up to the already great History of Henry Edmond.

I adored the History of Henry Esmond, and think it ought to be better known, because it has a great underdog hero, a real sense of immersion in the historical age in which it is set, the reign of Queen Anne, a secret which changes everything at the end, and a surprising love story. Thackeray obvious

This book has a promising premise with two Virginia brothers fighting on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War. It has an author whose word choices and warm observations I really liked in Vanity Fair. Yet, where the option given to me, I would borrow a term from Facebook and review it with a big "

My advice is not to start reading this unless you know you have a great deal of spare time ahead. Oh, and you must have read all of Thackeray's other novels first, or you'll miss many of the references. And then you're in for a real treat....this novel, as with all his others apart from Vanity Fair,