The novel, professedly the first in a series, begins with a dramatic account of the Battle of Thermopylae and takes the reader through some of the major events of Fifth Century Greek history well into the Peloponnesian War. The author knows his history and has used the sources with accuracy. The plot however is unwieldy, top heavy and its structure is decidedly peculiar. Characters are introduced in each chapter only to be killed off by its end. The reader often is left wondering why a chapter has been included as it appears to have no organic link with what has preceded or what is to follow. The author strives for variety in his narrative, but his choices remain odd; for example, the siege of Plataea, one of the most exciting events in the early part of the Peloponnesian War, is told from the point of view of a family sitting in their house hearing rumours of what is happening outside in the streets and playing no part in events. This seems to me perverse, as all drama is sucked from what was actually going on in Plataea. The novel is very long and so are its chapters, I found it difficult to maintain interest despite this being my favourite period in history. I do not plan to publish this review elsewhere.

I loved the non-stop action and I love Ancient Greece so this was wonderful for me. Thank you Net Galley for the ARC . i also loved the short chapters that kept it interesting.

This period of time has always been interesting to me, but hard to find good historical fiction series for! It's an era of time that is just as dynamic and epic as Roman History, but is often overlooked. I really appreciated the depth of the story and the amount of detail that the author incorporated.

I enjoyed reading this much more than I thought I would, very much a mix of a history and historical fiction book on ancient Greece after the events in the movie 300 well worth a read

A couple of years ago, I never would have been interested in reading about the ancient world. Then my daughter had a school assignment for her English class that involved reading a retelling of The Iliad and to better help her review, I sat down and read the book myself. Shockingly, I was hooked. Since then I have looked for books that are in this genre and Gifts of the Gods has not disappointed. This is a well-written book following the ancient world that draws the reader into this world. Fully engaging.

#GiftsOfTheGodsIronAndBronze #NetGalley

I had a really hard time getting into this book. I have finished the first 25% of the book and may come back and finish it another time. I was expecting something along the lines of historical fiction. I think what makes this book hard to get into is that the book starts out more like a semi factual account of what happened with Sparta/the Spartans, Xerxes, various wars, etc., but with no story or discernible plot to draw you in. Put another way, it is like research into ancient Greece written down, but without any character development. The book switches between years, events, and different characters and felt disjointed. The only story that I found interesting and that held my attention, was the story of the mother helping her son become the boxing champion. If the book began with more of this tone and manner of story telling, it would have been much easier to get into.

Overall, I think this could be a good book. It seems well researched and showed some promise. What hurts the book is that the first few chapters of the book do not really draw you in and with a 400+ page book, you need the story to capture you after the first few couple chapters. By the time the book was transitioning from fact telling to story telling, I had lost some of my interest in reading it. There is a good chance I will come back to it later.

This is a long and very well re-searched historical fiction. We're thrown in right after the famous scene of the 300 Spartans and follow Xerxes, Jycos, Kalli and a cast of characters through the wars and ordeals they have to face.
I learned a lot during this novel and I wish that history books in school would be written like this.
The author clearly knows his subject, but the novel might benefit from one more edit due to some confusing passages.

Iron and fire starts chronologically soon after the film 300 ends. Tight descriptive writing really pulled me in and soon I was lost in the multi-purpose story. I loved the classic Gates of Fire book by Steve Pressfield but honestly, I am enjoying this more. Highly recommended.

This book was well-researched, and I enjoyed learning the ancient Greek names for swords, etc. However, I had a difficult item bonding with any character. Part of this was that the author writes in a very distant third person point of view and doesn't delve very deeply into any character's psyche. I realize that I was reading an uncorrected proof, but sentences like "…goats and donkeys, with their horns wrapped in cloth..." drove me crazy (donkeys don't have horns). There were also multiple cases of misplaced modifiers and areas where the reader loses track of who is who is a paragraph because of the over-use of personal pronouns.