Name: The Days of the King
ISBN: 9780547388359

Filip Florian

Leaving his seedy region of Prussia for Bucharest, where a captain of dragoons is crowned prince of the United Principalities of 1866 Romania, dentist Joseph Strauss relies on a wise feline companion for protection while the prince distances himself from a disreputable past, an agenda complicated by a prostitute's baby. 10,000 first printing.

The Days of the King

Sarah Sammis

The Days of the King by Filip Florian is a Romanian historical fiction that was published in translation in 2011. Joseph Strauss, a Prussian dentist and frequent client of the local brothel, follows a dragoon captain to Romania, where the captain will one day be crowned.

The brief description and the glorious cover art intrigued me. Unfortunately the "aggressively dense" writing (as described in the Literary Omnivore review) combined with reading an egalley made for a difficult and unpleasant reading experience.

There are notes at the end of the book that explain the historical and cultural context of the novel but in an ereader without a proper table of contents built in, it's damn near impossible to flip between the notes and the text. Therefore, after reading and re-reading the same passages for clarity, I started skimming. When the skimming didn't seem to hinder my understanding any, I decided to stop reading.

Days of the King is best suited for readers who have a physical copy, and patience. An understanding of Prussian and Romanian history will help too.

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The Days of the King

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