Act of Oblivion: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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He has produced a ripping page-turner that breathes all the complexities and moral nuances of the Civil War period. It is the type of historical fiction that I enjoy immensely – realistic to the period, containing well-developed complex characters and a plot that maintains the reader’s interest throughout.

Act of Oblivion - Penguin Books UK Act of Oblivion - Penguin Books UK

A former political journalist, he often explores the darker aspects of politics and its corrupting effects on individuals. Many were pardoned but those who were directly involved as signatories to the regicide of Charles 1 were hunted down and executed. This is by far Harris's best book since An Officer and a Spy, which dealt with another great national division: the Dreyfus case. The tale involves maritime travel from London to Massachusetts to the rugged terrain of the Connecticut wilderness.They have to survive in an inhospitable, if magnificent, unknown wilderness and harsh weather conditions, living under a cellar in virtual imprisonment, having to develop survivalist skills, learning from and bartaring with Native American Indians. Robert Harris imbues the events occurring on both sides of the Pond with rich and vivid detail, bringing the reader along the harrowing sea voyage from England to New England and into the cold rooms and muddy streets of 17th century England and pre-Revolutionary America. It takes an age for Nayler to get across the pond to the colonies and even longer for anything further to happen. Over half the Regicides have since died but, of the remaining survivors, two names are highest on the most wanted list: Edward Whalley and William Goffe, who are suspected to have fled to the New England colonies across the Atlantic.

Act of Oblivion: Robert Harris - AbeBooks Act of Oblivion: Robert Harris - AbeBooks

What struck me most, though, was way in which it served as a reminder of all the horrific things done over the millennia in the name of religion. IF YOU HAD set out in the summer of 1660 to travel the four miles from Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first house you would have come to after crossing the Charles River would have been the Gookins'. Robert Harris has delivered another novel that draws in the reader and delights the senses with novel and surprising handling of the harshest of circumstances threatening survival for regicides in the "new world" fresh from their dealings with King Charles I. During the London chapters, Harris adds another narrator — Frances Goffe, Whalley's daughter and William Goffe's wife. It’s 1660, and Colonel Edward Whalley and his son-in-law Colonel William Goffe, take flight from England across the Atlantic.This is the main advantage of Harris's approach: The story is all about the two sides of a war and the ways people on each side justify their actions. Many of the men who signed the warrant for the King’s execution have already died in the normal course of things, or have been rounded up and imprisoned, to be executed in their turn.

Robert Harris Books | Waterstones Robert Harris Books | Waterstones

In this tense and beautifully written account of the ensuing manhunt, Harris brings sympathy to characters on either side of the civil war that divided a nation.Act of Oblivion: A Novel is a fictionalization of their lives, and those around them, after they landed in Boston. Two men on the run are housed initially by the Puritans (who sympathized with the anti-monarchists) but must flee when Nayler arrives in America to pursue them. This book is a sweeping saga set in the 1600s about the hunt for two (real) men, William Goffe and Edward Whalley, who signed the death warrant of Charles I, and their life in hiding in America. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. My only negative comment is that it was perhaps a little too long, as I did find my interest and attention wane during the mid stages of the narration.