This is one of those books that I found by complete accident, and I’m extremely happy I found it. I was hesitant to write a review about it given that I wasn’t able to find much information on the internet about it or about it’s author Enrique del Álamo. The only thing I was able to find about it was a YouTube video.

This is a fantastic book! Gotia: Memorias de un sueño (Gotia means the promised land the Visigoths saw as their eventual forever homeland. With the subtitle of “memories of a dream”. This historical fiction novel is written as an autobiography of the Visigoth King Rodrigo (he was the king during the Umayyad conquest of Hispania) written to his son. So the story is told to us by his point of view.

This is such a beautifully crafted story. It was as written after the events of the invasion of the mohammedans. In it Rodrigo describes his youth, upbringing, and how he became involved in the Visigoth political sphere. We get a sense of how the political structure of the kingdom itself, became it’s ultimate downfall. I’m not an expert by any means when it comes to the Visigoth Kingdom, but the manner the author plotted this story, it certainly made it believable on why the realm was able to be swiftly conquered by an enemy force.

Aside from the political intrigue and religious fanaticism. What struct me the most was the human aspect of the different characters involved in the story. Obviously we know what happens at the end, but the manner on which everything is unfolded in this book, is not despairing.