Sacred Treason cover art

Sacred Treason

Clarenceux Trilogy, Book 1

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Sacred Treason

By: James Forrester
Narrated by: Mike Grady
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About this listen

Your God. Your Country. Your Kin. Who Do You Betray? London, 1563. Catholic plots against the young Queen Elizabeth spring up all over the country. William Harley - known to everyone as Clarenceux - receives a book from his friend and fellow Catholic, Henry Machyn, who is in fear of his life. Then Clarenceux is visited by Francis Walsingham and his ruthless enforcers, who will stop at nothing to gain possession of the book. What secret can the book hold?

©2010 Ian James Forrester Mortimer (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd Historical Fiction Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant
this story was well planned & interesting.
it's twist & turns kept you gripped to the end.

well thought. out story.

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I love c j sansoms books and hoped that this might be similar. It was only for the period it was set in, I found it difficult to believe in the story. But quite enjoyed it.

Not quite what I had hoped for

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I came into this book blind, never having heard of the author or narrator before, but the brief resume caught my imagination. The characters and characterisation are well introduced and deveoped and the plot was superb - it kept even me, a seasoned reader of historical fiction in all its subgenres, guessing right until the denoument, which was itself perfectly timed and unwrapped in a masterly way. It weaves real characters with fictional ones, and it was refreshing to see Francis Walsingham & William Cecil from different angles to the usual stereotypes of Elizabeth I's spymaster and right-hand man we usually see in historical fiction of the period.

I do have one criticism, however; whilst the cat and mouse game between the main protagonist and his nemesis was intrinsic to the plot, there was just too much of it. Scenes that could've been cut far shorter without losing anything of the plot were dragged out and there were just too many stalk-fight-flight encounters, some of which were unnecessary. Towards the end, I found myself fast-forwarding (the audible equivalent of page flicking) past such parts in order to get to the next part of real plot development.

I can fully recommend this book to all afficionadi of historical thrillers, but with the caveat that it does get tedious in parts. It is extremely well written and the narration couldn't have been better. Others may well disagree, but I envisage it will only be those who love long, drawn-out fights.

Excellent yet Tedious

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Riveted from the start to end! Just read/listen to it.
Excellent narration. The author shows the very best and worst of humanity.

An amazing book!

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The narrator is good and does their best with what is a slow moving and overly convoluted storyline. The story is set at a time in history which has been written about by many other authors and although it tries to be original by approaching from a slightly different angle there were times where I was tempted to fast forward and zone out until the next important plot point came along. A reasonable Plus Catalogue or Deal of the Day listen but I am not sure it is worth paying full price for.

Convoluted & Slow Moving Storyline at Times

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