Review: A Witty Medieval Fantasy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 16, 2012
This book is refreshingly different to anything I have read this year. It reads like a fairytale for adults with its satirical quips and reminded me of programmes such as `The Black Adder'; period costume drama sprinkled with historical anecdotes, farcical humour and modern day speech.The story is both plot and character driven and includes a real motley bunch of people; you have the loud, disorderly and boisterous as well as the calm, organized and well mannered.Princess Aletheia is the teenage protagonist; a rather out-spoken intelligent young lady who was definitely born before her time and would probably have been better off if she had been born a man. You also meet Will, the local Squire who wheels and deals his way into the hearts of the locals; Gus who is the real warden of the land manipulating the King's often drunken decisions for the good of the realm; Tom is the ambitious guard who Will takes under his wing and selects to carry out a dangerous mission; the two Princes Jonathan and his brother Rainhard who never fail to be amusing with their double act and last but not least is Otto who has his eye on the title of `The Holy Roman Emperor' and plots his way into an arranged marriage in order to regain the favour of the Pope.And the plot? Well in a nutshell and without giving too much away, after the latest tutor does not even make it through the day, the king decides his daughter must be married off. Enter Otto who decides a wife is what he needs to take on the plight of obtaining a suitable political alliance which will help his cause of world (well Roman) domination. A plan is hatched to prevent the marriage which results in the Princess finding herself on the run with Will's newest recruit as her guard. Together they fumble their way across thirteenth century Europe whilst being tracked by a party from the Palace. All is not plain sailing and they quickly find they have to use all their wits (mostly lies and trickery) in order to survive.I really enjoyed the characters in this book and found them to be funny and engaging. There were formatting and grammatical errors but they did not detract from the story. It's definitely a good book if you want to down tools and just escape for an afternoon.Andria Saxelby for the Kindle Book Review