i could not get into this book. I usually really like alternate history, but I could not get interested in this world or its characters. Based on other reviews of how Roberts is a master storyteller, I'm wondering if I even read the same book - I found his storytelling to be dull and plodding. Instead of letting you get to know the characters, he just describes the stuff that happens to them. None of them felt real to me. The world these stories are set in is dark and grim and joyless. I was annoyed by how anti-Catholic the book is - if the Church is so horrid, why hasn't there been a Reformation of some sort? It felt like Roberts was writing this as catharsis for some personal vendetta against Catholicism. Nothing in this world felt genuine to me. Part of the problem might have been that I listened to the audiobook and found the narrator really annoying. He's only capable of two accents - the RP he narrates the book in, and the West Country hick accent he uses for all of the characters, which made all of them seem like ignorant louts.