Prague Nights

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Prague Nights is a historical novel set in Prague in 1599. The main character and narrator is Christian Stern, an arrogant and naïve young doctor who arrived in this town determined to make his rise at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor.
When on arriving in this city, at the first evening there, he discovers a young woman's corpse half-buried in the snow. At first, Christian is accused to be the murderer of the girl who later on turns to be Magda Kroll, Rudolf II's mistress.
The emperor, profoundly superstitious, had predicted the arrival of the young doctor as the “Christ-sent new star over Prague”, so he believes that he could be the one to investigate and find out who has murdered the girl.

I really wanted to like this book when I requested it because the synopsis made it sound like it could have been a great story. Honestly, at some point I was tempted to give it two stars, but I think the historical details were well researched so they made up for some of the negative points.
Beside this, I think this story lacks of depth and is overly descriptive, resulting in being too boring and “heavy”.
Christian Stern is an unlikable protagonist, who is totally lacking any particular talent and is not remarkable in any possible way. All of the events simply happen, for he just goes with the flow and follows what the other characters tell him to do, which is simply disappointing.
The thing that frustrated me the most, is that I felt pretty much nothing for all the characters. Maybe, if the author tried to balance more the sometimes useless descriptions with the depth of the characters, this novel would have resulted in being more complete and remarkable.