Reviews for The Sheen on the Silk

The average rating for The Sheen on the Silk based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-07 00:00:00 Daniel W George For such a fascinating subject matter - a girl disguised as a eunuch physician tries to save her exiled brother in the 13th century Byzantium - it's a tragically dull, flat, sluggish book. It's sort of an accomplishment to make Byzantium, court intrigue, and gender confusion dull. I read it to the end to see if it remained dull, and it did remain dull, and it was steadily getting even duller as I read on. The main problem was, I think, in the absolute lack of any suspense or mystery, because everything was clear from the beginning: the motivations of the characters, their likes and dislikes, their loyalties. Good guys were steadily good, bad guys were unflinchingly bad, no surprises, plus everyone was stupid. The "villainess" Zoe - what a two-legged plot device she was! Doing whatever she wanted, poisoning people by the dozen, leaving her enemies dead whenever their servants turned their backs, and not even once she was suspected of anything, no, everyone (including the heroine) loved her and cried after her when she died. Also, for some reason everyone desired her, even though she was nearly 80. I'm not saying that a person can't be beautiful at that age, it's just the way she was written, as if she were half her age. Even the poor eunuchs wanted her. She was also running around and slashing people's throats as if she couldn't afford a proper assassin. She could, because she was an aristocrat and an old flame of the emperor's, and she was not stingy. It was very confusing. The main character Anna, uh, can't really say much about her. For about 2 first chapters she was worried about her disguise, then she quickly forgot about it. She was very preachy, especially towards the end, but of course nearly all other characters loved her, except a few bad guys who were in the background anyway, so when it became clear she was a girl, nothing happened, despite the previous talking about some "punishment". I had high hopes for her love interest to be all conflicted and stuff about falling for a eunuch, but in the next chapter she was already a girl and there was - all right not much - some, fairly faint, rejoicing, and also a wedding I guess. Or something. The secondary characters were all the same, men, women, eunuchs, the emperor, monks, Venetians, Sicilians, Greeks. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches were also pretty similar, except the Catholic church was bad and the Catholic guys were bad, and if they were good, they sorta liked the Orthodox (the other one that is) faith better. Because it was more tolerant or some such. Also, Byzantium and its numerous ancient stuffs, mostly mosaics and murals, were way beautiful. I think they were exquisite. This word, "exquisite", was used nearly on every page. O God I think I am done. I'm going to get some sleep. I'm just bitter and sad because I wanted to like this book and it was horrible.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-09-11 00:00:00 Gayla Mcord I've read most, if not all, of Anne Perry's previous works and especially enjoy the two series featuring Thomas Pitt and William Monk. When I read the flyleaf description of this book I wasn't sure it was something up my alley. But I found myself totally captivated by this book. Having been to Istanbul, Venice and Messina (albeit 700+ years later) and having seen the Hagia Sophia, the canals and harbors her vivid imagery just made the whole book "pop" for me. The description of daily life in the late 13th century, especially the practice of medicine and the "three" genders, was fascinating. Even the struggles between the Roman & Orthodox churches came alive for me. Fascinating characters all the way around and I love how she's mixed fact & fiction with real-life emperors, popes, doges and kings alongside characters of her own creation. I highly recommend this book and if you still have doubts, check out the video on her website where she gives a wonderful 10-minute overview with relatively few spoilers!