Swedish Mysteries; Or, Hero of the Mines by Anna Maria MacKenzie.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars.

I’m a fan of gothic literature. Chuck me some Radcliffe, and I’m happy for hours. Dripping caves and fusty castles are my thing. Wicked religious orders and Machiavellian familial fuckery? I’m all ears.

You’d think, then, that I’d be all over MacKenzie’s based-in-fact-but-not-really novel about Gustav Eriksson, a man possessed of a shitload of derring-do and a will to power that saw him take on Christian II (of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, because one country’s obviously not enough) and win.

You’d also be wrong. This one’s a bit of a stinker, and as much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn’t. (more…)