Boudica

Manda Scott has already established herself as writer of skill and invention in the thriller field with such books as No Good Deed and Stronger Than Death, but her decision to re-model herself as a historical novelist was a brave move - and it's to her credit that the result is such a resounding success. This is the first of three novels about Boudica, the most celebrated defender of Britain's indigenous Celtic culture and one of the most famous of all female warriors. The book is set in AD 32, with Breaca (as Boudica, Bringer of Victory, is then known) a young girl mounting a furious defence against brutal marauders, and dispatching the man who attacked and killed her mother. But any historical epic worth its salt demands a massive cast of characters, and the most important secondary figures in Scott's epic are Caradoc, a charismatic leader, and Boudica's half-brother Ban, who is a Roman captive and Druid. All of the protagonists here are powerfully created, but it's the eponymous heroine who is Scott's real triumph: a multifaceted, conflicted woman who struggles between the demands of leadership and remaining true to her own character. This is a tale told on a massive canvas, crammed with highly convincing details of life in tribal Britain in the years before the Roman invasion; let's hope that it succeeds in re-establishing its protagonist as a heroine for our times. (Kirkus UK)