Rosemary Sutcliff Book Group discussion

This is where everyone put down their suggestions for our next group read, that will probably end up being for April!

I'd love to read Blood Feud as well, but I still haven't found a copy of it =( Frontier Wolf though, I definitely second seeing as it's probably, maybe, might be, my favorite :P

Blood Feud is available on Amazon - I have a copy from there. To be honest, whilst I love Sutcliff and consider her to have been incapable of writing a bad book, it's not one of my favourites. It has one quite strong bit which I won't spoil but for me (and I imagine I could feel differently if I read it again, I'm just talking about my first impressions) it had a bit of a going-through-the-motions/"cold-soup-warmed-up" feel to it. Yes, her character's a bit of an outsider who doesn't really belong anywhere. Yes, he gets made a slave. Yes, he and his master eventually become bosom buddies. It's the same theme she's used many times to good effect, but here it just felt a bit stale to me. This isn't meant to put anyone off, it's still a pleasant read with an interesting setting, but it just didn't quite do it for me, though like I said, it may improve upon rereading.

In fact having written all that, I'm actually quite keen to go and give it that second chance right now :)

Hehe, that's okay, everyone is entitled to their opinion ;) Though I think you should give it a second read, I know I have several books I didn't like a lot when I read them the first time (or was too young to appreciate them at the time) that when I read them again, I ended up really loving them. Sometimes it's the opposite. No one ever puts me off with their opinions, unless they warn about something they know I won't like in a story (which is why I have so really awesome friends who are willing to read anything AKA Mara (the other moderator) ;)

I guess this would be considered a Summer read now, I really want to get back into doing group reads! So please everyone give me your suggestions. I'm going to send out another newsletter in a couple weeks again then we can hopefully decide on something.

Well, once we choose the book, I'll allow two weeks to procure it for those who don't have a copy ready to hand =) I'm just waiting to see if anyone else wants to offer a suggestion or join the read.