The Sun over Breda (Spanish: El sol de Breda) is a 1998 novel by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It is the third book in the Captain Alatriste series.[1]

The Sun over Breda
AuthorArturo Pérez-Reverte
Original titleEl sol de Breda
TranslatorMargaret Sayers Peden
LanguageSpanish
PublisherAlfaguara
Publication date
1998
Publication placeSpain
Published in English
2007
Pages254
ISBN9788420483122

Plot

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The novel is set around the Siege of Breda during the Eighty Years' War. Diego Alatriste [es] and his teenage ward Iñigo Balboa fight in the Spanish army to suppress the Calvinist uprising in the Low Countries and become involved in intrigues. Iñigo encounters the writer Pedro Calderón de la Barca and helps him resque books from a burning library, and provides details that the painter Diego Velázquez uses in The Surrender of Breda.

Reception

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Publishers Weekly wrote that the book is as engaging as the previous entries in the series, with "fast, furious, and sanguinary" action. The critic wrote that Pérez-Reverte manages to describe "the universal madness and desperation of combat" and "the tedium and misery that is the common soldier's everyday fate and the zealotry with which Christians—Catholic and Protestant alike—once massacred each other".[2]

References

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  1. ^ "The Sun over Breda". Kirkus Reviews. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 24 September 2024.
  2. ^ "The Sun over Breda". Publishers Weekly. 1 January 2007. Retrieved 24 September 2024.