Really good story but I give it a lower mark because it has a lot of unneeded fluff that makes it long winded. The novel was good enough to keep me going. ( )

It's been several years since I read this book. But I read it a couple times in the last decade I've owned it. Good adventure/romance/historical fiction. ( )

I have read several of Winston Churchill's (the American Author not the statesman) books and had looked forward to this since it previews some of the character history of his novel "The Crisis". The book is the fictional biography of a rich landowner who fought in the Revolutionary War and as is typical with Churchill you meet several key participants of the time. The main character has run-ins with John Paul Jones, George Washington and Charles Fox among other notables of the period. For me these books are a bit of a guilty pleasure, they are well written and move along (mostly) at a pretty good pace.

Personally, this particular book drug a bit in the early half of the book. There is a great deal of attention to the love story and intimate details of his gentlemanly impulses. I also thought that some of the intimacies with the
"great men" of the time were overwrought. I found that the second half of the book was something I just could not put down. There is more realistic adventure and the story, though somewhat tired, moved at a much faster pace. Overall I enjoyed the book and it certainly won't put me off Mr. Churchill.

During the reading of this it occurred to me that Churchill was kind of Alexandre Dumas light-American. He uses many of the same themes and plot devices that Dumas was the master at and also seems to endorse the same mythic good versus evil. Sadly, very few if any were Dumas's equal and the novelty of these books really is the time and location, the author certainly does not have Dumas's turn of phrase. I found the book overall enjoyable and an entertaining read.

By the way there is a very good Wiki page on the book that gives a detailed description of the book at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carvel ( )

Novel of The American Revolution by a British Author.