Early Review – The Valiant by Lesley Livingston (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: February 14, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-0448493787
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Amazon Vine for Review
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Fallon is the daughter of a proud Celtic king and the younger sister of the legendary fighter Sorcha. When Fallon was just a child, Sorcha was killed by the armies of Julius Caesar.
On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Fallon is excited to follow in her sister’s footsteps and earn her place in her father’s war band. She never gets the chance.
Fallon is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators—owned by none other than Julius Caesar himself. In a cruel twist of fate, the man who destroyed Fallon’s family might be her only hope of survival.
Now, Fallon must overcome vicious rivalries, deadly fights in and out of the arena, and perhaps the most dangerous threat of all: her irresistible feelings for Cai, a young Roman soldier and her sworn enemy.”
I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. Previous to this I read Livingston’s Wondrous Strange series and thought that series was okay. This was an easy read about a young Celt who gets captured and ends up fighting in arenas in Rome. It was entertaining and a pretty quick read, but it was also a very simple storyline and a fairly surfacey look at Rome in that era.
This is definitely a YA book; nothing ever gets too gory or too dangerous. Our heroine does suffer some hardship but she dodges a lot of the pain and misery you would normally associate with slavery.
Things wrap up very abruptly, quickly, and neatly. I actually thought the ending was almost whiplash abrupt and it left me feeling a bit rushed and unsatisfied.
Overall this is a decent and entertaining light read about Gladiatrix and Rome of that time. There is a light and sweet romance and some fun fight scenes, but this is definitely a light and fluffy account of this era.
If you are interested a fictional account of gladiatrix (that’s an adult book) and goes into more detail of the era I would recommend the book “Gladiatrix” by Russell Whitfield. I read Gladiatrix a while back and enjoyed it a lot. The plot for that book is a lot more complex and it is a lot more gory…doing a more realistic job of picturing the struggles and horrors of that era. Another good historical fiction book about gladiatrix and Rome is “The Light Bearer” by Donna Gillespie. I would recommend both of those books over this one. However if you want a light and fluffy look at Gladiatrix this book should fit the bill.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– New Release Challenge
– Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge