Well told story and superb narration but.....

But I am getting more than a little weary of the superhero qualities granted the English archer protagonists and his fellow band of brothers in so many historical fiction works these days. A little more realism would be appreciated. I enjoy superhuman feats as much as anyone but you know what they say about too much of a good thing. A little more Shakespeare and a little less Marvel or DC would make for e better reading, in "my book." Otherwise, I cannot complain because the character descriptions, fight scenes and overall plot development are outstanding, as is the flawless narration!

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Lots of Action!

This tale has lots of action and was well worth the price and time spent listening. I thoroughly enjoyed it an DC will purchase the next audio book.

1 person found this helpful

Another Great Hosker Historical Fiction

First in the series the archer takes on the name of his father to cover for the tragic misdeeds of the son. I find Hosker's story-telling to be up there with the greats of early British history. I'm on a seek and find mission to read all of this author's work. The English archers are an integral part of the history and the success of the long bow is an important feature. Excellent narration.

1 person found this helpful

I enjoyed listening to Gerald Warbow's story...

I enjoy reading historical fiction that brings a period of history to life. Griff Hosker, Lord Edward’s Archer, kept me interested. I really like the telling of Gerald Warbow’s story. I did find the author lacking in descriptive details and narration, but I really enjoyed his understanding of horses (coursers, rounceys, etc.), bows, strategy, castles, and much more of the time. Some reviews feel his protagonist is too strong, but I find that was the time. The longbow was a game changer for Medieval warfare. Before the long bow, knights were tanks and extremely hard to stop. At the time, many knights didn’t understand and thought archers were a dishonorable way to fight. I would have liked to see more character development. I like that all his characters have descriptive names, but their backstory is limited. I enjoyed the narrator Marston York. I wish he could have done the sequel King in Waiting, in which Owen Front was the Narrator. The other narrator changed the feel of the story. I enjoyed this book and many others by Griff Hosker.

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Adventure

Hosker knows how to tell a story and York is a wonderful narrated. The only distraction was some bad grammar—like John and I really should be like John snd me. Don’t these people have editors? It has been my experience reading British novels that even medieval peasants spoke with decent grammar. Hosker has fallen to current culture where compound prepositional phrases seem to over correct to thinking I is more correct than me—and not know about subjective pronouns. Anyway, it happened several times. Otherwise surprisingly a fascinating adventure. I will read/listen to another.

A Fun (Semi-Historical) Ride

“The Scots often didn’t wear shirts or armor.”

“The Scots often go without shoes.”

“My sword slashed through his mail.”

There are a handful of sentences like these which took me right out of the story. As a historian, it was very clear Hollywood had made an impression on the author, BUT this is an enjoyable flick, along the lines of something like Braveheart or Tombstone - historically incorrect, but very good nonetheless.

If I have a major complaint, it was the narrator. He often gave the main character no inflection in dialogue, so the book would seemingly go from first person narration to him talking to someone, and sometimes I couldn’t tell until another character responded. There are a few times where Gryffudd is supposed to be shouting or threatening someone, and it sounds like he’s asking the cashier at a gas station how their day was. Overall, I’ll give the next book a chance, because I have seen poor narrators improve, and I’m willing to see if that is what happens.

epic adventure as always we would love to hear mo

love the narrator good job! bravo we will be patient and wait for the rest of the story!!

great story and it kept me from getting bored. Ca

The narrative was very good and one felt as though they were right in the middle of the action.