Bloody Rose

So, this book had a lot to live up to. If you’ve seen my Kings of the Wyld review, you have an inkling as to the rather high benchmark I’ve nailed to the rafters for this book to reach for. Kings of the Wyld was a neigh impossible act to follow, and despite a very valiant effort, Bloody Rose fell just a little short for me. That’s not to say it’s not a good book, because it is good, but it doesn’t drag me to the dizzying heights of its predecessor. That said, let’s talk specifics.

I’ll avoid any spoilers for this book, but I’ll make the assumption that you have a passing knowledge of Kings of the Wyld. Though, like most good series, you don’t need to have read the first to climb on board for an adventure on this latest jaunt. Our leading lady, Tam, is a likeable character that ticks a couple of the today’s necessary diversity boxes but doesn’t shove them down your throat, something that is done too often today in my opinion. They are aspects of her character but not her sole feature. She is defined by her actions, and although I didn’t bond quite as deeply with her as I did with Kings of the Wyld’s Clay Cooper, she is still extremely well written and relatable. I think the reason that I didn’t bond with her to the same degree that I did with Clay was because she just wasn’t that funny, whereas Clay Cooper was awash with deadpan humour. All the elements were there for Tam to be a fantastic protagonist, but they just didn’t quite mesh to perfection for my own personal preferences. Where this book loses out to Kings of the Wyld a little more is in the supporting cast. Yes, they are an interesting and fairly well written bunch, but none of them grabbed me like the old boys of Golden Gabe’s band. I’d best stop comparing the two novels now, or this will just turn into another few hundred words of me gushing about Book 1. This is a good fantasy novel that can stand all on its own without living forever in the shadow of it’s over-achieving older brother.

The (almost) new cast that we are introduced to are a diverse bunch, each with their own little quirks in the manner we’ve become accustomed to for these sorts of adventures, and the band’s quest proceeds with the usual twists, turns, and double-crosses. And that’s where the book lets me down a little once more. It didn’t get my heart pumping, didn’t leave me with that sense of desperation that I was praying to be overcome with. I just didn’t bond as deeply with the characters or their journey as I would have liked.

The book is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not spectacular. First and foremost amongst my direct critiques is that it was lacking the witty flair I was expecting from Nicholas Eames. Sure, there were a fair few pithy references and the odd moment that brought one of those half-chuckles that ends up being more like an exaggerated exhale, but it was lacking the Pratchett-esque spark I had hoped for. The fighting sequences were on point, but there was a level of predictability to the story that let the rest of its quality down. We also don’t get to see as much of the world as I would have liked. By playing off so many tropes, we have the advantage of not needing everything explained, allowing for a far greater range of topics and locations that we could visit without the necessary pages establishing lore and backstory. However, it seems like Eames is now trying to slightly distance his world from that style in this book and make the universe more his own. I can’t blame him. I firmly believe that writing fantasy gives you the opportunity to come up with something original, and I feel like he was trying to make his world more his own creation than the Frankenstein of fantasy universes that the first book set out. Unfortunately, it was that very same Frankenstein-world delivered on a bed of Eames’s sparkling prose that I was hoping to find here. This novel just has a different feel. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, but it doesn’t make my top twenty, and likely not even my top 50.

In summary, if you like the first, this is still well worth a listen. Good action, good characters, good story. Plenty of blood, guts, and swearing, so right up my street. It just falls short of what I had hoped for, but that shouldn’t take away from what it does achieve.

As for the narration, Katherine Fenton gives a sold performance. A switch in narrators between books in the same series can often be a little jarring, but considering that the main character changes from male to female between books and that only a scant few of the previous book’s characters are in this novel, so you’ll see no complaints from me. Fenton has a good range and a particular flare for nailing the older, more decrepit characters.

Personal Rating: 3.75 stars

Professional rating: 4 stars