Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Island in the Storm

Subtitle: Strategos, Book 3

Author: Gordon Doherty

Narrator: Rob Goll

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-03-17

Publisher: www.gordondoherty.co.uk

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

The storm is upon us, Haga. The answers you seek dance within its wrath....

In 1071 AD, Emperor Romanus Diogenes has rekindled the guttering flame of Byzantium. Yet in the eastern borderlands, two vital strongholds hang in the balance. Manzikert and Chliat must be won to secure the empire's fragile frontiers and vanquish the would-be usurpers who covet the imperial throne. But Sultan Alp Arslan and his vast Seljuk armies look to those twin fortress-towns also, resolute on seizing them first. Apion rides by the emperor's side as they march east, marshalling Byzantium's armies for the conflict that is to come. He knows only too well that the threat posed by the Sultan's hordes is well-matched by malevolent forces within the Byzantine ranks. Thus, the road to war is a savage one, but one he cannot refuse. For at its end, Fate beckons, taunting him with a choice of two futures. On the plains of Manzikert, one great power will rise and another will fall. On the plains of Manzikert, Apion will face the storm.

Members Reviews:

powerful

first I must say I was given this book for free and in no way does that influence my review.

I am hooked. This series is gripping in twists, turns, deciept and honor. The mystery keeps you searching for answers, but the honor displayed by some stirs sonething inside each and every one who listens to this book. From great battles that leave you breathless to the love and the loss portraied you won't be able to stop listening.

Fabulous book in a fabulous series.

The beginning of the end for an Empire

Gordon Doherty completes his Strategos trilogy in the same manner it started - well researched and historically details, providing a background for an engaging story. The story takes us to the Battle of Manzikert, which in 1071 saw the first major defeat of the Byzantium Empire after a couple of centuries of expansion. While the Empire eventually recovered and continued for several centuries after this, with varying levels of growth and decay, this was a major blow of it causing the loss of a large section of the Empire and creating decades of unrest.

The last 20 minutes of the audioobook are actually Doherty providing details on his research and what he modified - he admits where he compresses timelines or skips things for the sake or the story. He has also exaggerated some historical characters, particularly the 'villains' of the story, to increase the tension and build the story.

The story is interesting and well told. It also provides a solid ending for Apion's story.

There is potentially a reliance on the heroes being undermined by their own men, rather than their own failings. For example at one point the Strategos is given an impossible choice to make, neither strategically good. But he creates a third option that would work except that he is unknowingly betrayed and the option fails to nothing, forcing the decision of one of the bad choices. I felt like Doherty used the third option and the betrayal to cover over the historicity of the character/army making a bad choice. Like he couldn't allow for his character to have this be his fault. But Doherty explicitly talks about one of the other betrayals in his historical section stating that it really happened, so maybe this one did and I'm reading too much into it.

Narration by Rob Goll is good.