What do You think about The Mistletoe And The Sword: A Story Of Roman Britain (1974)?
Anya Seton was one of my favorite authors when I was in high school and college. She wrote historical fiction and this was where I learned a lot about English history. Her novels were very well researched. So I decided to revisit this author and found this book in my local library. Had I read it back in the day, I probably would not have continued to read Seton's books. This was like reading a history book of events that took place when the Romans occupied Briton in the time of Julius Caesar and after. Not much of a story line-rather boring.
—Cass
Young Roman soldier Quintus Tullius finds his lifetime dream fulfilled: to travel to Britain as part of the army and try to find the body of his long-dead great grandfather (killed by Druids). What he finds instead turns out to be something he did not know he needed. Set in AD 60-61 in Roman Britain, Seton, using period accounts and contemporary studies, recounts the exact historical events surrounding the uprising of the British tribes against the Roman army, led by fearsome Queen Boadicea. The book starts out a bit slowly but picks up momentum, and Seton does an excellent job of fleshing out history and making it immediate. She does not bother with much description, and her language is accessible. If you read Asterix comics, you will find the time period to be familiar(with much less humor, of course). Upper teen/adult.
—Phoebe
Anya Seton's historical novels were best-sellers in their time, narratives featuring, for the most part, resilient and determined women, their stories told in elegant prose, their lives and times well researched. Two of her books, Katherine (about Katherine de Roet, mistress and third wife of John of Gaunt, ancestress to the Tudor line) and Green Darkness (a complex tale of forbidden love and reincarnation set in two times) are among my favourites. The Mistletoe and the Sword is one of Seton's lesser-known, and lesser-regarded novels. Intended for a young adult audience, it is a shorter and simper tale than most of her books. Set in Roman Britain during the time of the Iceni Rebellion, the protagonist is a young Roman soldier who falls in love with a British girl who is of the family of the Arch-Druid of Britain - assuming there ever really was such a thing. (Seton's research is solid on the Roman aspects of her subject, but she wrote during that period of time when the state of research into Celtic society tended toward romanticism.)A light and pleasant tale, with a nice balance of action and romance, reminding us of a time when both young men and young women might be expected to read and enjoy the same books.
—Morgan Dhu
