Review: The Romantic would be better entitled Gladiator Lovers.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 27, 2014
The first chapters of this novella were entirely confusing to me.  Because it talked about gladiators, fighting and their type of weapons, I automatically assumed it was back in the days of Rome during Christian times.  Then it threw in some looking through reality glasses and that is the way it progressed through the entire story.  Sometimes it spoke of modern conveniences and then went into the Roman gladiator and mines and never did it distinctly say when all of the events were occurring.  Sebastian was the gladiator/poet in the story who eventually was partnered in the arena by Virginia when she joined him as a gladiator.  Then the story jumped around with different people, different explanations that were not continuous and even changed tense at times.  It had much action, but didn’t seem to stir up the danger and fear that novels ordinarily do.  Perhaps this is because it would have been better as real novel instead of a short story trying to stuff everything in.  I would like to see the author rewrite this as a regular novel and change the title so that it more represents the story itself.  I am giving my review three stars for the story as it now exists.This e-book was given to me free for an honest review.