Hi all –
In an inspired moment about 18 months ago, I suggested Simon Scarrow’s Cato/Macro "Eagle" books to my son. He loves them and is almost done with the last one, having gone through all 8 or 9 even with his schoolwork and required class reading.
Although Scarrow is almost done with a new book in the series, going forward Scarrow’s pace at writing is not going to keep up with my son’s reading....sigh!
So, I’m looking for recommendations for other series (or individual books) that are similar.
I asked my son what he liked about the books and here’s what he said, in rough rank order:
Tie for #1/#2: Action/battle scenes
Tie for #1/#2: Ancient military history (we’re talking truly ancient - Greeks, Romans, Alexander the Great – anything Napoleon or after is getting a little recent for him, although he will tolerate the US Civil War.)
#3: Reasonably accurate historical background and major characters
#4: Limited mushy stuff - he was glad (!!!) when Cato’s love interest got killed in book 2 or 3 or whichever it was…
#5: A bit of mystery is okay (that’s how I found the Cato/Macro series in the first place since the first few books were sometimes cross-sold as mysteries, and I’m a big historical mystery reader)
I’ve thought about trying him on Lauren Haney’s Lieutenant Bak series (ancient Egypt ought to be ancient enough), but am concerned that there aren’t battles. I also thought about the Roman mystery classics: Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor, etc, but again, not enough battles. I thought he might like the “political” books from David Wishart’s fine Roman series, even without battles, but I can’t find them as e-books.
I am going to give him some Dumas books to try next, but would also like to find another series or two he might like.
From reading other posts, I suspect we ought to be headed more towards military historical fiction than towards historical mysteries and I just haven’t read much in that genre, so I’m looking for suggestions…any and all gratefully accepted…
Thanks!
- Sue