Day of Vengeance by Johnny O' Brien Blog Tour: Guest Post!

Today I welcome Johnny O'Brien to Bookster Reviews, as part of  the Day of Vengeance blog tour!  Day of Vengeance, published by Templar, is the latest installment in the exciting Jack Christie Adventures. On this stop, Johnny will be guest posting on his favourite periods of history. And now over to Johnny...

History is a brilliant subject and teaches great skills (and is invaluable for pub quizzes which becomes quite important in later life).

As you learn more about history, you realise that every period has its own fascination – amazing characters, extraordinary events. Trouble is, history is so vast that there is always loads of stuff that you will never know.

I suppose three of my favourite periods are those that feature in the three Jack Christie books so far:

Day of the Assassins is the first in the series and is based around the assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 which triggered the First World War. What fascinates me about this period is how the First World War, which ended in nearly ten million deaths and changed the world, almost didn’t happen. The build up to the war is a mixture of comedy, farce and tragedy... one that might easily have been avoided – and I suppose that is the central idea of ‘Assassins.’

The next in the series is called Day of Deliverance and is based in Elizabethan England around the time of the Armada. This is a fantastic period of history. Not only have you got the great political and religious turmoil of the age but you have this incredible artistic renaissance – Shakespeare, Marlowe and much more besides. Again, you’ve got a big historical turning point – the defeat of the Spanish Armada – which of course is one of the great stories in European history and features in the book.

Just out is Day of Vengeance which takes Jack and Angus back to the twentieth century and the Battle of Britain, the defeat of France in 1940 and Hitler’s visit to Paris (which you can see astonishing actual footage of on YouTube – very spooky and sinister). The Second World War also changed the world and was the worst military conflict of all time.  The period is really without match in history – in terms of scale and significance. In some ways, a lot of our history since then has been about people trying to make sure it never happens again. One of the things I like about modern history, particularly the Second World War, is the availability of real footage of events – it helps bring it to life.

The topics in the first three ‘Jack Christie’ adventures are probably better known bits of history. For that reason, for the fourth book, we’re going to go somewhere a bit different and take our readers to China. This story features the Taiping Rebellion. Never heard of it? Well you will. It was a civil war in China about a hundred and fifty years ago and more people died in it than in the First World War. It’s going to be great to take Jack and Angus somewhere new, where many people know a lot less than they do about some of the other periods they have been to. Hopefully you will agree!


Thanks Johnny! What an interesting post! I haven't heard much about the Taiping Rebellion, but I'm looking forward to finding out more about it. 


And make sure you check out the rest of the blog tour. See above,the tour's banner, for more. Tomorrows stop, which is the last on the blog tour, is on Booktastic Reviews.


I hope you enjoyed reading Johnny's post as much as I did! My reviews of the books should be up soon!