One place, different times

Synopsis

AD 61

Brittania is in the hands of the Romans but when the conquering army betray the dead King Prasutagus by defiling his daughters, his Queen, Boudicca, is determined to regain her land.

Iceni slave Brea remembers little of the time before the Romans, and has grown used to their louche and indulgent customs. She diligently goes about her duties looking after the artless Aurelia, wife-to-be of the handsome war hero Marcellus, but her longing for freedom and her desire to find her lost father, are never far from her mind.

Present Day

When Hanna returns to Norfolk from years working abroad, the strange dreams of her adolescence return: indistinct figures in tunics, mighty soldiers in armour, gladiators, temples, an Iceni warrior woman leading her people. Gradually Hanna’s dreams begin to slip into the present as visions in the famous mists rolling across the fens, and as shocks of recognition when a new face moves to her childhood home.

As Hanna realises that she has a connection with a tragedy that occurred many years before, so Brea has to understand that her fate is bound up with her Roman master. And as the drumbeat of rebellion gets ever closer Brea must make the fatal choice between love and

loyalty while Hanna has to find a way to make peace with the past.

My review

After spending years abroad, Hanna returns to Norfolk. With her return, also the strange dreams she used to have during her adolescence reappears. Strange dreams that show her an Iceni warrior woman, soldiers in armours, gladiators and temples.
But then her dreams take a different turn, as Hanna suddenly starts to have visions of that same woman, in the mysterious mists of the fens.
Hanna is determined to figure out what her dreams and visions may mean. And she discovers that that Iceni warrior woman is in fact Brea, a young woman captured by the Romans, and turned into a slave. A slave whose duties were to look after war hero Marcellus’ wife – to – be Aurelia. But Brea never loses hope to be free once again, and to be reunited with her lost father. And she finds an ally in the most unexpected way, as Marcellus himself promises to help her to find and free her father.
But Brea comes to a point to make a choice between love and loyalty to her people.
And Hanna meanwhile has to face the connection she has with Brea, and has to decide where her life will be, and make peace with her past. 

I am the kind of person who doesn’t believe in visions, ghosts or other things that are inexplicable. But I am also the kind of person that, even if I don’t believe it, I keep an open mind, just in case… 

And what I liked about this book is that it’s all rather believable. In the sense that Hanna is a woman with both feet on the ground, she isn’t a spiritual kind of woman, into witchcraft or other things like that. 

Ever since her accident as an adolescence she has been having the strangest dreams. And as I am known for having the weirdest dreams myself (I could write about them!) , I could sympathize with her as I know how it feels to wake up from them and being disorientated. 

Somehow those dreams also gave Hanna a kind of wanderlust, as she has been traveling around the world. It felt to me that she was perhaps scared to return home, afraid to reignite the force of those dreams? 

I have to say, returning back to Norfolk and seeing Hanna reunited with her mother, warmed my heart. Because my first impressions of her mother were those of a mother pushing her child to be the best at everything. Yet Stephanie is in fact a lovely woman and an amazing mother. 

Once back home, Hanna has to think about what to do next with her life. And that was somehow also recognizable. Because haven’t we all been at that point once in our lives, taking a stop, thinking about our past, present and future? And sometimes going back home is exactly what we need to do, as home will give us the answers, unexpected possibilities and puts the right people on our paths. 

But home, in Hanna’s case also brings her back in a faraway past, in Brea’s life. 

And Brea for sure is a tragic character in a way… I can only try to imagine what it feels like to see how your home is being taken away, how it feels to be turned into a slave.
Perhaps ‘lucky’ isn’t the right word, but that is what I felt about Brea’s circumstances. Because even if being a slave, she is having a rather safe life. 

Her ‘master’ isn’t the abusive one, using his power to his own benefits, and as long as Brea and the other slaves follow the rules, they have nothing to fear. But still, even if she has it rather easy as a slave, isn’t freedom always better? 

Her story truly saddened me in so many different ways, but I also admired her as she somehow, despite her current life, she never lost hope. She truly believed that someday she would be free and reunited with her family again, and why not, even find love. 

I was happy for her when she even found it, even if it were in an impossible way. but just like Brea, I kept hoping that a way would be found for her to have all her dreams coming true somehow, someway… 

Seeing the connection between Hanna and Brea is one to see with an open mind. If you start pinpointing everything that you find unbelievable, this book isn’t for you.
As I kept my mind open about it, I truly enjoyed reading both characters’ story, about how even if centuries separated them, there is something that brought them together. 

And I liked it to see how even with such a huge timespan, in the end, we all want the same thing, to be free, to be surrounded by family and friends, and to find love. And while one might have to fight literally to gain it, one other has to dig deep (literally) to find it. But even if the how and the what may be different, the purpose is always the same…