Niccolo Rising is the first in the House of Niccolo series. In this particular book, we are introduced to young Claes, who begins the story as a servant in the dyeing establishing of the widow Charetty in Bruges.
I picked this novel up because, as any reader of this blog knows, I love historical fiction. On the whole, though, I struggled with Niccolo Rising, primarily because the author lost me when she got into the political events of the time. Frankly, I was bored, so much that I began to skip pages to get to the more interesting parts. The language is dense and difficult to follow. I had to read this book is short fits and starts because the author really packs the information in, sometimes to the detriment of the plot. But when the plot got back to Claes, it was actually quite interesting. It’s just too bad that there was so little plot there. Too, it was really difficult for me to identify or even understand the main character, since the third-person narrative doesn’t actually revolve around him most of the time. It was disappointing, considering all the good things I’d heard about this book prior to beginning it.
Comments
Thanks for the review.