Do You like book Sharpe's Tiger (2012)?
I'm a big fan of CS Forester's Horatio Hornblower books about a British naval officer during and after the Napoleonic wars, and this has been praised as the Army equivalent. Richard Sharpe is a very different character, and I don't know if I'll become as attached to him as Hornblower, but after this novel I'm looking forward to the other novels detailing Sharpe's exploits and rise through the ranks. While certainly no gentleman, Sharpe does have a core of what one officer calls "kindness" and while not educated, he's clever and courageous. When we first meet him here, he's an illiterate private, a former thief, dreaming of desertion, and his insane and cruel sergeant is scheming to trap Sharpe into a flogging offense. The novel is strong in conveying what it's like serving in the British Army in 1799 India, all the little details from how they kept their hair to how they loaded their muskets. Besides the fictional characters it features real historical figures such as Arthur Wellesley, the future Lord Wellington. The novel is often suspenseful, particularly towards the close and delivers on nail-biting, heart-racing action adventure.
—Lisa (Harmonybites)
Now that was a fun ride. In truth, for the first third or so I thought I was going to get rather bored, and I wasn't sure this book would be more than a 2-star, 3 at most. Matter of fact, right up until the end I thought I was looking at a 3-star, even when it did get interesting.But Richard Sharpe is a brilliantly drawn character. He's a regular guy in the British army in 1799. He's crude and a bit wild and bored with the service. But when you get right down to it, the man is a good guy, mostly. Well, he's funny at least.I listened to this on audio and the narrator was wonderful. He's British, so that fit the majority of the characters, but his other accents were just as good. Whether doing a Scot or an Irishman, a Frenchman or an Indian, he was great. I've noticed that there a couple different narrators for this, depending on which audio you get. The one I listened to was done by William Gaminara. Honestly, he might have made the difference when I finally decided to raise this to a 4-star review.To be honest, I'm not sure how many of the 20 other Sharpe novels I'll get to in the near future, but my experience with the first one (chronologically, at least) is a pretty good indication that I'll keep them on radar. I like Sharpe well enough to want to follow more of his adventures, and I like Cornwell's writing well enough to keep reading.
—Chris
My rating here is really more for the entire series than just this book alone. There are something like 20 books in the series, so you need to go to www.bernardcornwell.net to read the books in order, even though they weren't written in order. This series is one of my favorites and falls in that magical category of truly educational fiction. The series follows the journeys of the fictional Richard Sharpe through the British army around the world in the early 1800's. It is amazingly well researched, from the language (which is pretty coarse, although accurately!) to the uniforms to the actual historical events. I am always surprised to get to the end of the book and read the historical notes and discover how accurate the facts are (I thought he made that up!). Cornwell writes the best battle scenes I have ever read, without being in the slightest bit tedious. Over the course of the series I learned all the tactics of Napoleanic warfare entirely without effort, and this is a subject in which I truly never expected to develop an interest! It has been turned into a fairly corny, althoughly highly praised, BBC series. Please read the books before watching the tv shows though - they are pretty low budget, although the star is none other than the fantastic Sean Bean. My ONLY criticism is the villain in the first few books is annoying (just KILL him already!). Highly, highly recommend the entire series - but be aware the language is strong (although totally in character).
—Ashley
