Having watched the Sharpe Tv series, I was keen to read the books. Sharpe's tiger is the first Sharpe novel, set in India in 1799. I felt the book was quite easy to get into, and what I really liked about it was how it was full of action, from start to finish. Having watched the TV series first, I find myself always picturing Sharpe as Sean Bean, and Hakeswill as Pete Postlethwaite. Overall a very good read, and I shall be buying the next book in the series, 'Sharpe's Triumph'.

I have only read this book in the Sharpe Series, but it was hugely enjoyable. It's well-researched, though the historical facts at the end did slightly undermine the plot! Nevertheless, I'm a huge fan of historical fiction, and this was a pleasure to read.

I read a few of bernard cornwell's books after reading his first arthurian novel, winter king. Now I loved the Arthur trilogy but although I enjoyed some of his other books I stopped after the first Sharpe prequel Sharpe's tiger. All the book are well written and researched making good use of historical detail. Reminiscent of C. S. Forester's work, the Sharpe books start well. The publication order is very different from the reading order. I did find that after reading a few Sharpe books in a row there was a slight feeling of I've read this before. This was the last bernard cornwell book I read. In fact I've since passed on all of his books with the exception of the Arthur trilogy. This isn't a bad book. It's well written as usual and plot is decent. But I found the notion of Sharpe being present at virtually every single major campaign in this time period, from India, to Waterloo via Trafalgar, to just feel a bit contrived. I said that the Sharpe series is reminiscent of C. S. Forester's work. But there is a difference. Forester didn't put hornblower into the major historical events. His reasoning makes sense to me. Forester said that if he put hornblower into the battle of Trafalgar for instance then the book would not be a hornblower book as the hero of that story is Nelson not hornblower. It's just a personal thing and the Sharpe books I read were entertaining. But for me none of cornwell's books matched up to the Arthur trilogy.