It’s over. It was sad, as I expected, but it could have been worse. One of the fascinations of reading the Boudica series is that Scott will bring events right up to the point where you think it can’t get any worse and she is going to have to pull away except she doesn’t and the worst does happen. Of course, heroic things happen. It couldn’t be a book about iron-age warriors without heroism. But somehow, even when they do it is still sad. Oh, maybe I’m just sad the series is over. I will say that Scott seemed to get a little lazy with this last book. The use of language and imagery that spun a spell in the first books seems a little tired by this fourth book. Ah, but I would read a fifth, if one appeared. ( )

The brutal conclusion of the third book has left Breaca lingering near death, flogged and beaten, and her eight-year-old daughter Graine traumatised by her rape at the hands of Roman legionaries. They are damaged both in body and mind, with Breaca having lost her shimmering insight as a leader, and Graine finding herself suddenly shut off from her dreaming. Both of them must heal, and those who love them try to find the time to let them do so. Graine goes to Mona, where the dreamers can care for her, while Breaca tries to conceal her new frailty and to keep the hearts of her warriors strong. But she can’t hide her wounded soul from those closest to her...

For the rest of the review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2016/12/20/boudica-dreaming-the-serpent-spear-manda-sco... ( )

In this the final novel in Manda Scott's Boudica series, the entire historical credibility of the novels falls apart for this reader. Scott seemingly abandons research in favour of complete immersion into lucid-dreaming and its alleged effects upon the physical world.

Her portrayal of pre-pubescent Grainne, who was raped by half a century of Roman troops, goes beyond any hope of credibility. If the child lived after such brutality, it is highly likely she would have been so traumatized both physically and emotionally as to be incapable of functioning, yet Scott has Grainne discussing military tactics and strategy with her elders, a discussion a healthy, functioning child would be hard-pressed to conduct, let alone one as brutalized as Grainne.

Scott further weaves the not very subtle threads for a possible Arthurian link here, which she admits in her author's epilogue, a literary device perfectly acceptable if one were writing fantasy, but certainly not for any kind of credible historical fiction.

Character point of view looses any coherence in the final novel, so that within any chapter the reader might first be presented with Grainne's point of view, then switch to Breaca's, or Valerius', or any number of others. Where the editor was leaves me wondering.

There is a substantial scene Scott has woven into the denouement which seems of little relevance to the story arc other than the author's own fascination with the Iron Age peat bog find of the Lindow Man. This scene completely arrests the tension and action, and again one has to wonder about the editor assigned to this novel.

For me, a disappointing end to a middling series. ( )

4th in series - I loved this!!!

This is the fourth and last in a series about Breaca, warrior Queen of Roman-occupied Britain. A blend of well-researched historical fiction and (because let's face it, we don't know much) a healthy dose of mysticism and spiritual magic, this series has been intense, violent, emotional, and just out and out fabulous. It will plunge you into a very different world, where gods and the dead exist very closely with us and can be accessed by Dreamers or even by ordinary people in extraordinary situations. My only quarrel with the series is that everyone in the tribes seem to be either Warriors or Dreamers - but most people must have been farmers, with a sprinkling of hunters, woodsmen, smiths, leather workers, wheelwrights, and so on. Oh well, it makes for a damn good read. ( )