I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into this. A plot to bring Julius Caesar to the future to learn from him? Very strange. But the way this was written — I absolutely loved this book. It took a little while to get going. We see Caesar for a second in the very beginning, then it moves to present-day and introduces the modern characters. At first, I was impatient for Caesar to come fully into the narrative, but once we got to Cassandra’s backstory I was sucked right in. She is such a wonderful character, and following her story was engrossing. I liked the way Edwards weaves all the modern characters together so we get the full picture of how this whole wacky project came to be, and then we add in Julius Caesar and it becomes a ride.
I think if you are going into this book looking for a serious, literary take on what Julius Caesar thinks about the modern world, this book will not be for you. If you go into it to see the absolute chaos that unfolds if you bring a famous general from 2000 years ago to modern LA/Las Vegas, then you will enjoy this book.
The audio narration was very well done, with only a dew places that I could tell had been weirdly spliced together. The voice actor does a great job of bringing these characters to life, which is no mean feat when one of them is literally Julius Caesar. I sometimes had trouble distinguishing his voices for the different male characters, but I made it though okay.
I am so glad I listened to this book — I finished it in one day and it made my trips to and from work (as well as one grocery shopping trip) very delightful. There are some laugh-out-loud (and maybe worry some other grocery shoppers whoops) moments, which is just the icing on the cake for me. Highly recommend.
Received free for review from Netgalley. A Coin for the Ferryman is out March 1.
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