I love the opportunity to read a bit of something new, and in this case, I know it's not for me. While I love good historical fiction, and this one appears to have been deeply researched and well done, the vast cast of characters turned me off right at the start. Then, once I realized there was a very heavy Christian viewpoint I was turned off completely. While I am not against a touch of faith in a book, unfortunately my experience is that most tend to convey sometime type of exclusion message that just ins't my thing.