Reviews
My new novel, The Good Shepherd and the Last Perfect is being picked up by a community of brilliant Bookstagrammers and I’m thrilled by what they’re saying about it! I’m including their reviews below for those of you who aren’t on Insta. And if you are, please follow and support this wonderful community, which helps authors and publishers get the word out about their books.
I’m just gonna say I bloody loved this book! I devoured it in three sittings.
I felt that I had emotional connections to the characters and really felt for their struggles, especially when learning that this book is based on real events.
This was an enjoyable piece of historical fiction that detailed a period of history that I knew little to nothing about, but I feel like I learnt a lot from this book, it had obviously been very well researched.
The writing was engaging with a compelling storyline and well developed characters that were based on real people, which I absolutely love in historical fiction.
This was a brutal read that was uncomfortable at times, purely because you know this isn’t exaggerated, human beings really did carry out this brutality on other human beings, which at the time was seen as perfectly reasonable.
I really enjoyed it.
The first thing that drew me to this book was that it’s a part of history that I don’t really know anything about , although of course it is historical fiction you can tell the author has certainly done the research!
The characters in the book all bring so much to the story and really build the depth throughout. In this book we follow Pierre Maury and Guillaume Belibaste in their journey with the forbidden faith.
It’s a good pace throughout the book , with everything tying together, there isn’t a dull bit to read through, it’s very enjoyable and great for fans of historical fiction novels.
An intriguing novel that covers the life of the Cathar’s, both the preachers (The Perfects) and the followers, practicing their religion under the threat of The Inquisition. The book eloquently details the nomadic life induced through living in fear and constantly looking over their shoulders. Focusing mostly on Guy Belibaste, the Perfect, and Pedro Maury, the Shepherd, you quickly learn of their background leading to their circumstances and how that sets their path for their futures. Especially Guy, who fell into being a Perfect after an unfortunate incident which meant that a less than perfect man became the Last Perfect and suffered internal turmoil as a result.
The book touches on the story of what happened when these ‘heretics’ were caught by the inquisition, but not enough for my liking (but this is a personal preference), but focuses more on the journeys they undertook together. I normally look to historical fiction for action and that wasn’t where this book took me; however, that didn’t detract from the story of persecution and fear or being ‘different’ and believing in a different version of the same religion.
An insightful read noting it is based on a true story making me thankful of what we have today.