The Stockholm octavo

While I was immediately sucked into this book and finished it in two days, I am having great difficulty figuring out why. The main character is a bit of a non-entity, with no real distinctive personality (except perhaps a tendency towards excess) but, like the book, he's somehow endearing. The pacing was perfect, with a constant steady pace and no extraneous historical sidebars, which are often the hallmark of historical fiction and invariably disturb the narrative flow. Card playing and gambling, the art of hand fans and Sweden's political upheavals merge seamlessly with the plot, miraculously and don't feel like tacked-on details to add historical accuracy.

Highly recommended, especially to those who think they don't like historical fiction.