Book Review: Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt

Article first published asBook Review:Rocamoraby Donald Michael Platton Blogcritics.

About:
Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt is a historical fiction book taking place in 17^th Century Spain. This book was the 2012 finalist in the International Book Awards for Historical Fiction.

• 408 pages
• Publisher:Raven’s Wing Books
• Language:English
• ISBN-10:1618070150

My rat­ing forRocamora—5

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More Books by Donald Michael Platt

Thoughts:
Rocamora by Donald Michael Platt (website) is based on the life of Vicente de Rocamora a poet, fighter and Dominican priest who was thrust into the scheming court of King Philip IV. Rocamora became the confessor for the king’s younger sister, the beautiful Infanta Doña María and was considered as a strong candidate for Inquisitor General.

I found this book to be a first-rate historical novel; I learned a lot of history from the book, about life in Spain and the Inquisition, as well as following the story in vivid detail. Mr. Platt weaves his story around the history and doesn’t change the facts to fit his story (at least I couldn’t find any glaring cases of such).

The novel certainly let’s the reader feel the glory of Spain fading during the reign of Philip IV, while Count Duke Olivares acting as prime minister (in today’s terms). The author also weaves in the consequences which Spain suffered under religious fanatics, anti-Semitism and corruption of the aristocracy.

This is a solid, well written historical novel with plenty of historical background, the dialogue is believable with Spanish words and phrases peppered throughout (the author always manages to translate them or let you know what they mean based on further reading). The narrative keeps the reader turning the pages with. The author describes each outfit, room, weapon and characters to extreme detail, while it sometimes weighed down the story I found them to be interesting as well as part of the charm and authenticity of the book.

Buy this book inpaperorelec­tronicformat*

More Books by Donald Michael Platt

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer:I got this book for free fromHistorical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account

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