A finales de 1804, Napoleón y Wellington intentan cada uno de distinta forma de escapar de sus respectivas mujeres (Josefina y Kitty Pakenham respectivamente) y, curiosamente, ambos dirigen su mirada a la península Ibérica: Napoleón con el objetivo de poner a uno de sus hermanos al frente de un país en el que la política y la religión se han convertido en grandes campos de batalla entre aristocracia, clero y pueblo llano; Wellington, con la intención de huir del politiqueo de baja estofa que se ha adueñado de Lóndres y con el deseo de eclipsar la aureola que rodea al héroe del momento, el capitán Nelson.

I must admit to being horrified when this was chosen as my book club book but not one to be deterred I ploughed on. I do love history but have never really been interested in battles. Although I did find some of the battle scenes a bit too lengthy in the descriptions I found myself becoming more and more interested and feeling quite tense as the book came to an end. I was disappointed that there was no real ending to the story, I know that there are sequels and that in history there is no real ending but although it surpassed my expectations I can't see myself being interested enough to carry on reading more. I found the descriptions of Napolean's character really interesting and now have a true sense of him as a man and not just a name in history. I'm sure that Mr Scarrow has done an enormous amount of research but I wonder how much of his personality is written about or is it just imagined? ( )

Very good book but quite long and it comes across as a bit of a history lesson. Fascinating period of history and very interesting seeing it from the viewpoints of Napoleon and Wellington. It is not like Sharp novels but it certainly fills some of the gaps. ( )