Customer Reviews
Not as good as 'Lady of Hay' - By: Mrs. D. Penn, 20 Aug 2008 
Like others before, I too was very reluctantly disappointedin this book as it did repeat the same things over & over again. The characters always seemed to be doing the same things butin different locations. The best BE novel to my mind was 'Lady of Hay' & I have read & own them all. Of course, a lot of research must have gone into this & it IS very entertaining & yes I DID find it difficult to put down - but all the time getting more & more exasperated by the repetition .... perhaps I was waiting for something new to happen?
Repetitive and corny - By: K.G., 14 Aug 2008 
My favourite type of book to read is fiction which is based on history so I was really looking forward to this book by Barbara Erskine, but I was really disappointed. Whilst some of the sections that described iron age Britain were undoubtedly fascinating, the story as a whole was so repetitive, the same things happened over & over again. The main modern-day character, Viv, went backin timein her dreams or waking visions, came back to normality, saw a ghost, was frightened & then there was a corny one liner about the evil Medb character trying to take over the story. I quite liked it when it was just Viv that experienced the past, but when other historical figures started posessing other modern day characters it became ridiculous & I didn't stop moaning about how silly my book was until I finally finished it. The ending was rubbish as well. I don't like giving up on a book once I've started but this was a real struggle to the finishing line & I was very relieved to put it down at last.
Daughters of Fire by Barbara Erskine - By: Mrs. Rosemary Ford, 19 Dec 2007 
I absolutely loved all Barbara Erskine's previous books. I was so much looking forward to reading her latest novel. What a complete disappointment it turned out to be. I thought I'd try & get into the storyline & even put it away for a few months. Could not finish off the book as I was much too annoyed & wanting the same magic as the other books provided. I have sent this book to my mother-in-law to see what she thinks of this latest addition.
Daughters of Fire - By: G. Cullen, 10 Oct 2007 I have all of Barbara Erskine's books. She is an excellent author. The only comment I would like to make about Daughters of Fire was that for me it went into too much detail. It was not like her other books. Her other books put it this way I found them hard to put down.
Immeasurably disappointing - By: Sparky, 17 Sep 2007 This was the first of Erskine's novels that I read & I was thoroughly disappointed
There are a number of problems I had with the novel;
-In Daughters of Fire Erskine attempts to link the present day to the past; a time when the Roman Empire invaded Britain. The present day focuses on a historian named Vivviene whose attempts to write an historic novel about the Celtic Queen Cartimandua are hampered by dreams & visions of the life of Cartimandua which the reader is supposed to believe are real events. The dreams that the main character has make up the link to the past however at times it is difficult to understand whether the link is supposed to be simply visions over which 'Viv' has no control or whether she has some sort of influence over the events.
-the reactions of the characters to the situation they found themselvesin were at best repetative, at worst unbelieveable. The same situations occured time & again - Viv would have a dream about Cartimandua & wake up absolutly terrified. When the other 2 charactersin the present day scenario also had visions of the past they reactedin exactly the same way as Viv. This happened 3 or 4 times per chapter. Maybe every person would react the same way to a particular situation but it didn't make for a particularly thrilling read.
-3 bit-part characters who come into the story, for some inexplicable reason, morph into totally different people by the end of the novel. The only reason I can concieve of for the change is that Erskine wanted us to feel less sorry for them when she killed them off. It's bizarre & totally non-believable.
This book had so much promise; I had previously read a series of novels by Manda Scott about Boudicca & was impressed not only by her fantastic ability to storytell but by the research that must have gone into writng it. Daughters of Fire lacked both of these.
