Just Finished: Horses of Heaven by Gillian Bradshaw

I love to discovered new authors! Gillian Bradshaw is a writer of historical fiction and as the search on Google yielded, she has also written some children books and some science fiction and fantasy. Horses of Heaven takes place in the region between the Middle East and India: The kingdoms of Saka and Bactria. Apparently these kingdoms are real. I have to say that I have never heard of them. The time of the story is after Alexander the Great but before the rise of Rome as a world power.It is the story of the Bactrian king's sister who has been given in marriage as a way to seal an alliance between two neighboring kingdoms that are facing a common enemy. She is a Buddhist who has trained herself in the ways of duty and detachment. Her training doesn't serve her well when she is faced with the repulsion she feels towards her husband. She is determined to do her duty but the more she tries, the more her efforts make the king mad because he demands, and wants to obtain, something she can't give: love. She, who thought love to be impossible finds herself falling in love with the king's son, Izaz. He, who also loves her, is determined not to betray his father. Events get in the way and they are finally thrown together.

The book is interesting and the story is well told. At first I had trouble getting into the book, the descriptions were detailed and, as much as I like historical fiction, I don't like detailed descriptions of things that I find difficult to picture in my mind. Once the story picked up it was hard to stop reading. That said, there were some things I did not like about the book. First, I did not like the mix between historical fiction and fantasy. Personally I think the book would have been better without that horse (or god)that kept appearing. It seemed as an added element-like the author didn't know how to solve the problems and needed some "supernatural" intervention. Also, the story was told as an account written by one of the queen's attendants.But the story goes into great details, like the persons thoughts and inner feelings and emotions, that another person can't possible know. That really bothered me. It took credibility away. I kept asking "how would you know that?". In sum, I liked the book well enough, enough to search for other books by the same author but, it is definitely not one of my favorites.