Belmonte by John Bradley

  This book was quite good once it got going, but what an odd start!   It was supposed to be about four men emigrating from 16th century Portugal to the New World, and, yes, it *was* about that, once it got going … but the early part was totally bizarre, with Endovelico (an ancient Portuguese god) turning two of the boys into falcons, so that they could visit Joseph (of amazong technicolour dreamcoat fame) in ancient Egypt and then late 15th century Portuguese explorers travelling to Ethiopia.   The Ethiopia bit was interesting, because it’s an aspect of the “Voyages of Discovery” which gets overlooked, but I’m not sure why it had to be shown via an ancient god turning people into falcons.  And I’ve no idea what Joseph had to do with any of it!

Once we got back to normality, there was a lot of “mystical” talk about a) the Portuguese interest in the Templars, b) the legend of Prester John and c) the Kabbalah, but that was fair enough for a book set in 16th century Portugal.   And we got two main stories – that of Ruy and Davide, two young Jewish friends who went to study at the University of Coimbra but were forced to flee by the Inquisition, and that of Juancinto, a Spanish gitano who accidentally killed someone and was transported (I’m not sure that transportation was a thing in 16th century Spain, but never mind) to the New World.   There was a fourth man, Daniele, son of a Moorish father and Jewish mother, but he appeared at the beginning and didn’t reappear until the end, by which time I’d forgotten about him!

I was a bit uneasy about some of the talk concerning secret organisations, which just seemed a bit too close to international conspiracy theories for comfort, but generally it was an interesting book, and I’m hoping to read the sequel if I ever get my TBR pile down to manageable levels!