Name: Finding Camlann: A Novel
ISBN: 9780393240153

Sean Pidgeon

An archeologist teams up with a linguist to follow a trail of mysterious clues hidden in an old Welsh war poem that points to the origins of the King Arthur myth.

Finding Camlann: A Novel

b.andherbooks

Set in academic England and the Welsh countryside, Finding Camlann begins a journey to find some new insights into the mythical versus historical King Arthur, but in the end the reader is left sorely wanting. A new archaeological discovery leads to the public to believe the grave of King Arthur and Queen Guenivere has finally been discovered, and the two main protagnists come together to investigate the veracity of this claim. Instead of focusing on this, Pidgeon storyline gets muddied up with an old family mystery that haunts Julia, the female lead, her Welsh nationalist father, and her husband (who she rapidly is estranged from due to this mystery). This mystery was supposed to merely serve as a device to bring the characters to a geographical location but instead turned into a main focus to the detriment of the truly exciting part of the story. 

Also, The 'romance' between Julia and the male protagonist Donald, a British archaelogist who is attempting to find the true King Arthur, was really a throw away. I didn't feel an adequate explanation as to why Donald was so entranced with her, as most of her story line revolved around her stumbling into plot points set up by past events.

I really thought I would enjoy a more academic-based novel about ancient lore and archaeology (as compared to Dan Brown's over theatrical Indiana Jones' style novels), but unfortuntely this did not pan out. Much like a badly written undergraduate paper, Pidgeon threw in block text from 'manuscripts' (in both Welsh then translated into English, ugh) which I could not determine if they were made up to fit the story or truly exist. I was not compelled enough by the story to find out.

Pidgeon's descriptions of the natural were quite beautiful, too bad the main adventures were so dull.

Finding Camlann: A Novel

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