Mondays Book Talk: The Lost City

Written by Paula Rider 

The Lost City by Henry Shukman 

The Lost City by Henry Shukman was offered to me as a read and I did not know what to expect from the story but the cover and the book description grabbed my interest about a lost city to be discovered in the Peruvian jungle – sounds exciting, however it was not as exciting as I had imagined. 

Don’t get me wrong, Shukman is a beautiful writer and his descriptions are poetic and the jungle scenes and landscapes of Peru just flow off the page, however the story itself is more about the journey the young protagonist, Jackson Small takes to find the city of La Joya, and the characters he meets along the way. 

I believe the story for me lost momentum after the first couple of chapters and it was not quite clear the direction it was taking as I was waiting for the character to stumble across the city. The Lost City is a story about the journey the character takes and how he finds love with a young woman who helps him to heal the grief from the traumatised violent death of his fellow soldier, whom he had a close relationship with, which caused him to set out on the journey to Peru in the first place. 

This book will give the reader a beautiful raw view of Peru through Shukman’s wonderful poetic descriptions, loyalty of characters, a sense of adventure and one of self-discovery through the character of Jackson Small.