I went through a James Michener phase in my teens, and read an awful lot of his fictionalized (but sometimes with historical notes at the end) historical novels: Hawaii, Caribbean, The Source, Texas, etc. etc. But somehow I never came across Iberia back then. Maybe it was because it seems to be regarded as non-fiction, rather than a fictionalized historical novel. And I didn’t really do non-fiction at that age, since I felt like I got enough non-fiction reading in school 
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In any case, Iberia is on sale right now in the US for $1.99, and I’m going to grab it.