Review 282: The Great Scot

The Great Scot: A Novel of Robert the Bruce, Scotland's Legendary Warrior King by Duncan A. Bruce
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Historical novel written by a descendant of King Robert Bruce’s brother Sir Edward Bruce. It tells of the battles and important moments by a page, turned soldier, who was close to the King. This is the story of how Scotland became free, for a wee time.

The writing style is simple, although there are untranslated words, sentences in several languages such as Gaelic, Scots and French, perhaps a bit of Latin thrown in. At times there was too much summary, too cursory. The book is attempting to be accurate, and with lack of information from the 1300’s much has to be invented or glossed over. Yet some moments are fairly details, which makes the book a little uneven. Character development is flat as well. What you get instead is moments of battle and a lot of marching all around Scotland. Places are named, not described. There is a little more description when the narrator goes to France on a diplomatic mission.

Despite all the flaws, I still enjoyed the book.

Reminiscent of the book: In Freedom's Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce. Covering 1293-1315.