Elise Stokes's Reviews > Five Dances with Death — Dance One: A Historical Adventure Novel

(Not suitable for readers under 18)

Hands down, Austin Briggs knows his stuff. His years spent researching the history of the Aztec Empire and the Spanish Conquest is evident in the first installment of this dark tale that he masterfully weaves in a fluid and engaging writing style. He paints a vivid picture of the Aztec life, fascinating and at other times shocking, due to the violent nature of the Aztec culture and religion. Excellent writing is meaningless, however, if the characters don’t leap off the page, grab you by the collar, and yank you into their world. The characters breathe life into a story, and Angry Wasp takes this responsibility seriously, capturing the reader from the get-go as a desperate father trying to win his enslaved daughter back in a game. When he loses, we feel the blow too. We know how the story ends for the Aztecs, but we don’t know Wasp’s story yet, though his first dance with death makes one thing clear: Wasp the Warrior will not go down without a fight.