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There are currently 19 member reviews
for The Drowning Guard
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Colleen T. (Lakewood, CO)
Captivating read
[Editor's Note - review contains potential plot spoiler]
I just finished reading "The Drowning Guard" by Linda Lafferty and was captivated and awed by the story line and the characters. I loved that the story line somewhat followed the idea of Scheherazade telling nightly tales as from "The Arabian Nights: Tales from a 1,001 Nights" without going overboard with the idea, for me it was just right. I also found the writing and the character development superb, Lafferty has a wonderful way of getting to the "meat" of a character in a brief amount of time. Despite all of this, I gave the book four stars as I found that the ending, for me, was a bit too sweet and cutesy, considering the more striking brutality that takes place earlier in the novel's story. It just didn't seem to "fit".
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Alice W. (Sacramento, CA)
The Drowining Guard
Well, this was not a favorite of mine. I love reading about the Ottoman Empire, the Janniseries (sp), Turkey, but somehow it didn't pull together. I found the writing weak. Even though the main character is not fictional, the plot seemed highly unlikely
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Shirin M. (Beverly Hills, CA)
The Drowning Guard
An interesting book about a culture and period that may not be well known to many. A character driven story with some explicit and violent descriptions that make for a difficult read at times.
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Rose N. (Saginaw, MI)
The Drowning Guard
"The Drowning Guard" reads like a fairy tale for adults. However, as amazing as it seems, Linda Lafferty has written a somewhat historical depiction of the Ottoman Empire of the mid-nineteenth century with all its cruelty and opulence. Sultan Mahmud and his half-sister, Esma Sultan, are strong Ottoman rulers, living in the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople, replete with their slaves, harems and eunuchs. In plain and simple writing, "The Drowning Guard" gives the reader an almost unbelieveable, but very human, picture of the Ottoman civilization in a defined time and place.
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Cynthia A. (Grand Rapids, MI)
Not worth the read
I did not enjoy this book. While reading the first part of the book, I kept waiting for something to happen. The book would go backwards to past history. I did not like the way the characters called each other, swine, dog, fool, infidel, scoundrel, dung beetle, etc. There was too much description in the book.
Then when I got to the end of the book and it said that there really is no proof of drowning guards, I thought, "Why did I even read this?"
I did like the quality of the paper the book was printed on and wish more books were on this type of paper.
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