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Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw
I don't remember where I saw a rec for this book (somewhere on DW, probably) but I finished it today and absolutely loved it. You know how sometimes you read a book and just want to start reading at the beginning immediately? This was one of those books.
Island of Ghosts is set in Britain towards the end of Roman rule. A detachment of Sarmatian cavalry -- effectively hostages from a conquered steppe tribe, considered dead by their own relatives -- arrive to reinforce the defenses at Hadrian's Wall. The Sarmatians are baffled by the settled farming people around them, struggling to cope with the idea of living in houses rather than wagons, chafing under Roman laws and trying to learn a foreign language; meanwhile the local Britons (who have only recently and very tenuously become Roman themselves) consider them incomprehensibly barbaric, these horse-riding people who wear coats made of their enemy's scalps and solve their differences through duels to the death, while the Roman provincial rulers and cavalry commanders can't see why everyone can't just peacefully assimilate and be part of the empire already.
I couldn't say how true to historical fact the broad strokes of the characters' attitudes and cultural details are, though the specific events of the book are obviously fictional. However, the general tone of the book is a lot less dark and grim than historical fiction frequently is, which I noticed a few reviewers on Amazon taking it to task for, along with the fact that it's tropey as hell (which for me is a feature, not a bug). I don't want to give the impression that dark stuff doesn't happen -- this is a book that includes a description of a pregnant woman having her baby cut out of her womb and being thrown onto a bonfire along with her infant and toddler. The protagonist's people have a practice of decapitating their enemies and turning their skulls into drinking cups, while the Britons practice human sacrifice and the Romans are, well, the Romans. I really appreciated, in fact, that the protagonist is not magically innocent of this kind of thing. He's the leader of a group of soldiers who have been fighting a brutal war against the Romans. Nobody's hands are clean. Similarly, the Romans are not portrayed as a shining light of civilization but are shown to be just as barbaric and cruel in their own ways as the so-called "barbarians", particularly in their treatment of slaves, women, and religious minorities. (Other potentially offputting material that might be DNW for some readers includes an infant being exposed to die and a subplot involving abuse of carriage horses, as well as animal fights as entertainment. There's no on-page rape or rape as a backstory for any of the protagonists, but it's suggested that there was quite a lot of it during the war.)
But on the whole, this is a book that's about picking up the pieces. It's about people looking beyond their differences and learning to lay aside old hurts in the aftermath of a war, putting themselves back together and making each other better. This book mashed down all my buttons for making friends with your enemies, found families, getting back up after you get kicked down, and soldiering on (literally) in the face of loss and pain. I adored the characters, and there's a side romance I really enjoyed, but there's also a strong focus on friendships, parents and children, and community as relationships of equal importance. It's a book about being torn away from your home and family, and then finding a new one.
I haven't read anything by this author before, or even heard of her, but I'm definitely going to be looking up her other books. (Looks like she has one that's about werewolves in the Crusades. I AM THERE.)
ETA: One thing I should mention is that the Kindle edition contains a lot of OCR errors, including a recurring problem getting the protagonist's name right. It's also fairly expensive. I don't regret having paid for it because I loved it Just That Much, but the print version is probably more readable; I assume it doesn't have the same issue.
Island of Ghosts is set in Britain towards the end of Roman rule. A detachment of Sarmatian cavalry -- effectively hostages from a conquered steppe tribe, considered dead by their own relatives -- arrive to reinforce the defenses at Hadrian's Wall. The Sarmatians are baffled by the settled farming people around them, struggling to cope with the idea of living in houses rather than wagons, chafing under Roman laws and trying to learn a foreign language; meanwhile the local Britons (who have only recently and very tenuously become Roman themselves) consider them incomprehensibly barbaric, these horse-riding people who wear coats made of their enemy's scalps and solve their differences through duels to the death, while the Roman provincial rulers and cavalry commanders can't see why everyone can't just peacefully assimilate and be part of the empire already.
I couldn't say how true to historical fact the broad strokes of the characters' attitudes and cultural details are, though the specific events of the book are obviously fictional. However, the general tone of the book is a lot less dark and grim than historical fiction frequently is, which I noticed a few reviewers on Amazon taking it to task for, along with the fact that it's tropey as hell (which for me is a feature, not a bug). I don't want to give the impression that dark stuff doesn't happen -- this is a book that includes a description of a pregnant woman having her baby cut out of her womb and being thrown onto a bonfire along with her infant and toddler. The protagonist's people have a practice of decapitating their enemies and turning their skulls into drinking cups, while the Britons practice human sacrifice and the Romans are, well, the Romans. I really appreciated, in fact, that the protagonist is not magically innocent of this kind of thing. He's the leader of a group of soldiers who have been fighting a brutal war against the Romans. Nobody's hands are clean. Similarly, the Romans are not portrayed as a shining light of civilization but are shown to be just as barbaric and cruel in their own ways as the so-called "barbarians", particularly in their treatment of slaves, women, and religious minorities. (Other potentially offputting material that might be DNW for some readers includes an infant being exposed to die and a subplot involving abuse of carriage horses, as well as animal fights as entertainment. There's no on-page rape or rape as a backstory for any of the protagonists, but it's suggested that there was quite a lot of it during the war.)
But on the whole, this is a book that's about picking up the pieces. It's about people looking beyond their differences and learning to lay aside old hurts in the aftermath of a war, putting themselves back together and making each other better. This book mashed down all my buttons for making friends with your enemies, found families, getting back up after you get kicked down, and soldiering on (literally) in the face of loss and pain. I adored the characters, and there's a side romance I really enjoyed, but there's also a strong focus on friendships, parents and children, and community as relationships of equal importance. It's a book about being torn away from your home and family, and then finding a new one.
I haven't read anything by this author before, or even heard of her, but I'm definitely going to be looking up her other books. (Looks like she has one that's about werewolves in the Crusades. I AM THERE.)
ETA: One thing I should mention is that the Kindle edition contains a lot of OCR errors, including a recurring problem getting the protagonist's name right. It's also fairly expensive. I don't regret having paid for it because I loved it Just That Much, but the print version is probably more readable; I assume it doesn't have the same issue.
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She wrote two historical fantasies for children which I remember loving in middle school, The Dragon and the Thief (1991) and The Land of Gold (1992); they are set in ancient Egypt and Nubia respectively and begin when the down-on-his-luck protagonist tries his hand at tomb robbing and instead discovers the last apparent dragon in the Two Lands. (Her name is Hathor and she's awesome.) The sequel finds them venturing south after rumors of dragons at the source of the Nile and crossing paths with the sole survivor of a deposed royal family; it was not my first fiction about ancient Nubia, but only because Andre Norton's Wraiths of Time (1976) kind of counts if you squint. Nobody in these books that I can recall is white, not even a walk-on lost barbarian. The dragon is an excellent dragon and I liked both of the humans a lot.
Island of Ghosts sounds great and reminds me that I never tracked down Beacon at Alexandria.
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I shall endeavor to read them.
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Hope that helps! :D
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I picked up some Bradshaw books from the library today, and London in Chains is one of those, as well as those recced elsewhere in the comments (at least the ones I could find!).
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It's like Sutcliffe but with interesting female characters and less trauma overall.
Heh. I gotta say, one thing I wondered reading this book is why "upbeat historical fiction" isn't more of a thing. Aside from historical romance, which tends to be heavier on the "romance" than the "historical", there are a couple of writers who do mystery series set in ancient times who come to mind (Ellis Peters for example) and other than that, it's wall to wall plagues and people dying at age 30 with terrible teeth. And I absolutely love some of those books, for sure; I really enjoy historical fiction as a genre. But I'd enjoy reading more of it that's more in the general style of this book.
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In the interests of full disclosure, she does have at least one book that's wall-to-wall plague, but I have otherwise generally enjoyed the historical novels of Jill Paton Walsh. I rediscovered her a few years ago with Farewell, Great King (1972) and enjoyed everything by hers I promptly fished out of the library, although you should stay away from A Parcel of Patterns (1983) if you don't want to be depressed for a week.
On the classical front, I also recommend Tom Holt's Goatsong (1989) and its sequel The Walled Orchard (1990); the latter is bitterer, but that's due to Athenian history at the time.
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