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Review
‘An enjoyable, sweeping and often touching tale of bravery ’
SFX
‘This is a rip-roaring adventure story; the pace rarely flags. There’s scheming, murder and betrayal aplenty’
Interzone
‘A vivid historical setting and a lengthy and satisfying plot’
Publishing News
Product Description
Set in an era of brutal conflict and turmoil, this epic adventure is the first novel to tell the full story of the slave who became a saint, of the man who rose to the challenge of his time and changed the course of history.
In the summer of 405AD, Irish raiders attack the western coast of Wales, carving a fiery swathe through the peaceful countryside. Among the survivors who are rounded up and taken back to Ireland is Succat: an impulsive sixteen-year-old son of a powerful Roman family.
Succat is sold as a slave and put to work tending sheep. Repeated escape attempts lead to ever more brutal and savage beatings, until he comes to the attention of Cormac, a young novice druid. The two strike up an unlikely friendship and, as Succat learns the ways of the Irish people, he is given a new name by the druid: Patrick.
With a new name begins Patrick’s new life: he is married, and returns to his home to claim his inheritance, only to find his father’s estate in ruins. So begins a calamitous journey that will lead him to Tours, see him join the Roman Legion as a soldier, suffer the the horrors of a plague-filled Rome; and thence back to Ireland, where he will embark on a mission for which his name will be remembered throughout history.
In the spirit of Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian cycle, Patrick is a gritty and unsentimental portrait of one of the Western world's great icons, featuring an accurate and compelling rendering of the historical period – an era full of brutal conflict, adventure, turmoil, and visionary inspiration.
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CONCESSA LAVINIA LIVED in fear of thieves carrying off her spoons. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Lawhead again shows himself to be ahead of his time, as there is a Hollywood film about Patrick coming out which will no doubt bring interest to Lawhead's work. If you want to read the best and most imaginative account of St. Patricks life, you need to start here.
Do yourself a favour, buy Patrick, find a comfortable place, turn off your phone, and immerse yourself in Lawhead's world, just remember that you have to sleep at some point!
However, there are serious flaws which mar the book for me. There is a big gap between the final section of the book and the epilogue, in which Patrick finds the conviction he has been lacking throughout the text and lights his bonfire before that of the High King - providing the catalyst for the conversion of Ireland. But the story of how he gets to that point from his return to Ireland is absent. We are left with a fulfillment of the prophecy of the druids which feels a bit too pat - Prince Hamlet suddenly metamorphoses into Dan Dare.
There are other diappointments. Normally Lawhead has a real talent for evoking a sense of place, but this is almost wholly missing in the Irish sections, as previous reviewers have remarked, but also in the British sections. Patrick's homecoming journey north should be a triumphantly drawn, but it is lifeless and barely memorable.
There are also some elementary errors, like the information thast Sliamh Mis is in the North West of Ireland, when it is in the North East; this causes problems with the passages that deal with Succat's escape.
However, there are parts of the book which are very good, and it still manages to draw the reader in. The Roman and Gaulish sections are particuarly lively and well-depicted.
Overall the book manages to be greater than the sum of its parts, but only just. It gives the impression (as many of Lawhead's more recent books have done)of being poorly edited, and so reads like something written in haste. This is not the best of Lawhead's books, or even the best to begin with if you've never read him before. But for seasoned LAwhead fans, this is unlikely to put them off.
Good, but could so easily have been much better.
Lawhead has developed a powerful talent for evoking the past warts and all. This came across particularly in the Roman section of the book - which I guess was also the most well researched. He has also developed his skills as a story teller. Compared to the slow, almost languid start of Byzantium (a better book overall), Patrick starts like a rocket. Succat (Patrick) finding himself in Ireland by page 24.
The book's flaw is in the section concerning the druids. While most of the books's characters are well drawn, the evil druid Buinne is a caricature. While I think Lawhead is right to be sceptical of the established church of Patrick's day I found the concept of Christianity being spread through Ireland by a druid sect a bit far fetched. Is there any historical basis for this?
Overall, though I enjoyed this book. Worth reading.
The only thing that I found confusing was the last chapter... Read more
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