The book that I am reviewing is called “The Burning Shore” by Wilbur Smith. I choose this book because of its great detail and how imaginative Smith is when he depicts the story to us. The book was first published in 1985 and was the follow up to another Wilbur Smith novel called “A Sparrow Falls.” This book was equally as good as “The Burning Shore” and so was its follow up “Power of the Sword.”
Smith has proved over and over again that he is a master story teller and “The Burning Shore” is a perfect example of some of his finest works. Wether the subject is love, war or wether he is describing the brutal conditions of world war 1 and how horrific the trenches actually were or if he's describing how it was a battle of man versus machine, Smith describes it in the most perfect way possible. Smith writes with such authority and exquisite attention to detail that it just leaves the reader in awe and excitement on what the next page might hold. I found this book extremely interesting and Smith had me hooked to the book from the beginning. The book is based in 1917 during World War One, A South African fighter pilot Michael Courtney falls in love with Centaine, a French woman. On their wedding day, prior to their wedding, Courtney is killed in action, and following the destruction of her home by a German bombardment, the pregnant Centaine enrols as a nurse and embarks on a hospital ship for South Africa. The ship is torpedoed by a German U-Boat and Centaine lands on the Skeleton Coast. She attempts to make her way south to South Africa but is adopted by two San who teach her how to survive in the desert. From the beginning of the novel, Smith creates an atmosphere like no other author can do. He has the best sense of place of any other author who is an adventurer writer. The Novel is absolutely magnificent because of its strong sense of passion, and due to it being filled with its vivid amount of action. It is most certainly one of the best books of the twentieth and twenty first century. The Burning shore is one of the richest and most entertaining books to date and is a must read. However, although I found it a very interesting book from the first page, some of the other people who have read this book have said to me they found it quite difficult to keep interest in the book in the first few pages. But I hope that doesn't deter people from reading this book because Smith is truly an expert in keeping the readers interested and making thrilling scenes throughout the novel. (Written by Ben Newman) Comments are closed.
|
|