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Blood in Blue Water is Margaret Allan's Bronze Age coastal-Mediterranean novel, set among a small fishing community that has been quietly trading with the wider Phoenician network and is starting to notice that the wider network has not been bringing peaceful visitors. The protagonist is a young free-diver whose family's livelihood depends on the trade routes.
Allan writes the prehistoric Mediterranean with the kind of detail Jean Auel readers will recognize: the boat construction, the diving practices, the religious life of the family, all carefully researched. The romance plot follows the genre rules. The political plot is more interesting than the cover suggests.
Three stars. Recommended to readers who like serious prehistoric romance. Not a series-launcher in the Auel sense; the book stands on its own.
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