Having read the Grail Quest series, I was glad to find that this book revisited the characters from the series, although the story stands alone. I really enjoyed the book - there was plenty of action and a cast of memorable characters.

After a long gap, author Bernard Cornwell re-introduces us to the characters from his “grail Quest” trilogy. As the title suggests, this is set in 1356 during the Hundred Years War when the English had the upper hand in France. Archer Thomas Hookton, leader of a bunch of English aligned mercenaries (including a number of the deadly English archers) is given a mission to recover a holy relic which may give considerable power to whoever has it. Dodgy churchmen are also after it so Thomas and his men are involved in a game of cat and mouse with various bad guys until things come to the crunch when Thomas is with the heavily out-numbered English army at the battle of Poitiers. It’s hard to fault the author when on ground as familiar and well researched as this and it is a very entertaining book. Elements are slightly cut short as the story pushes towards Poitiers, but this remains classic Cornwell. Having said that, I detected a slight change in style, there is more swearing and character banter then usual and some very light humour at times. No complaints but it did feel slightly different. Much to enjoy here and I certainly did.

Although not my usual type of book, I found this quite an exciting and dramatic read with well-described battle-scenes and a page-turning plot. The fighting action is the focus of the story but the characters are portrayed well enough to help to keep the reader’s interest.

There are two things to note before beginning this review: 1) This book is certainly not my genre, whatever that means. 2) This book is part of a series, I haven't read the others, but from what I could tell, it started pretty much from fresh. This book starts well, and really picks up the pace from the beginning. You are instantly thrown into the plot, which is well constructed, and does make you turn the pages. However, at two hundred pages in, the pace seems to drop and the often clunky writing and frankly unbelievable dialogue slows the whole thing down. Unfortunately it is here where the writing it becomes the main focus However, unless it is a gory battle scene, Cornwell struggles to make the writing interesting or intriguing. Luckily, the plot is fantastic, and only the reason I continued to keep reading was out of sheer curiosity and determination that I would find out what happened to the flashes of believable characters. The ending is good, but not worth the two hundred pages you have to get through before it. Although I didn't enjoy this book mainly due to the writing, it did make more interested in other similar books, it's just a shame such a good plot was lost with the writing.