There are four volumes in this series about the British warrior queen who fought the Romans. We know that she lost, gloriously and tragically, in the end but we also know that she has remained in the hearts and minds of the British to this day, and it is fascinating to read her story.

The books span the entire period of Boudica's life and give a great deal of meticulously researched detail about the Druid religion, the Roman invaders and Boudica's fellow warriors and family. Her fictional but entirely possible brother Ban plays a large part in the tale.

We learn a lot about the religious beliefs of the time, both Roman and Druid, and the way these influenced attitudes to marriage and to sex. Sexuality was not something that worried the British; people might love others of either gender at various times of their lives. Marriage was very much a contractual affair, cementing relationships between clans and families. Boudica, in these books, loves both men and women. Ban, through a series of events that part him from his family and birthplace, ends up in an affair with a Roman officer, one of the invaders, and through this we see the various Roman attitudes in comparison with the British ones. His love is as doomed as his sister's life but equally worth following in this wonderful story.

The loves and lusts and partnerships are explored in exquisite detail, and despite the immense gulf between these cultures and our own, Ms. Scott manages to elicit sympathy and empathy for her characters. These are very real people, with clothes and weapons, dogs and horses,

political agendas and religious influences that make them completely three dimensional. By the end, the average reader will have forgotten the history and will be totally invested in Boudica's rebellion. Putting the final volume down and returning to her country and people almost two millennia later comes as a shock. She has never been forgotten; now she lives again for us, and so does Ban.

[The four volumes in the series are (I) Boudica, Historic Warrior Queen; (II) Boudica, Dreaming the Bull; (III) Boudica, Dreaming the Hound; and (IV) Boudica, Dreaming the Serpent Spear.]

                 

 

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