Bradshaw, Gillian - Island of Ghosts

This is actually the first Gillian Bradshaw book I've read (cue gasps of horror?), but I'll probably be picking up a lot more on the strength of this one, except the one that yhlee found horribly sporky.

Ariantes is a prince of the conquered Sarmatian people, sent off to Britain with his company and a few others to act as cavalry for the Romans. He's got to try and balance between gaining the Romans' trust so that he can help out his people and not becoming so Romanized that the Sarmatians stop trusting him. Of course, while all this is going on, he stumbles into a conspiracy that threatens both the Sarmatians and the Romans and must work out who's trying to kill him.

Even though I'm a cultural fish out of water, this type of plot isn't one that usually interests me, largely because the conclusions seem too easy and too pat. Many authors seem to ignore that this sort of cross-cultural divide can be a lifelong thing, and that it has to be dealt with and worked on day-to-day and isn't resolved by some big epiphany. I was also wary of the whole wild yet free barbarians vs. civilized yet corrupt Romans story, or the man seduced into other culture and hated by his own people but then brings peace to them both story.

Anyhow, Bradshaw avoids all these, which is really quite marvelous and much more difficult than it sounds. She manages to include several cultures and sub-cultures, including the Sarmatians, the conquered British, the Romans, and others belonging to religious cults, and while she's doing this, she never resorts to stereotyping. All the characters are very much products of their culture(s) while still being individuals with their own personalities, and I also like that she portrays factions within a culture so that there isn't a single Roman mono-culture or something. There are layers and complications, which is fitting for a book that delves into what culture means and how it shapes people.

While the most obvious dilemma is Ariantes', since he's caught between the Roman world and the Sarmatian one, everyone has their fair share, from the Roman officers who are now living in Britain to people from Britain serving the Romans, and, of course, people who belong to different religions while also serving different nations/tribes. I really loved how Bradshaw portrayed all this with such nuance.

And, while the book was a little slow to start off with, I found myself really, really like Ariantes by the end. He's such a good man, and realistically so. Sometimes there are good people in books or movies who are really wonderfully good, but aren't like people I know, or good people who are heroic. Ariantes is just a man caught in confusing circumstances, and he consistently tries to do the right thing even while he's attempting to navigate his new world. I found myself admiring him a great deal throughout the book. And Bradshaw doesn't make him perfect or make him have modern attitudes; he's very much a Sarmatian and a believable one at that.

There's also the bonus of a love story that isn't Grand and Epic. All in all, very good read.