Started: 07/04/20
Finished: 12/04/20
Spoilers: No
I’ve had this on my shelf for years after learning it was the book that inspired A Game of Thrones. I just never got around to reading it. Then quarantine happened and it seemed like a good idea to catch up on some TBR veterans.
This is basically Game of Thrones, but without the tits and dragons, and I'm not even mad about that.
I don’t know what I expected, going into it. But after so many years of never being in the mood to read it, I had low expectations for some reason. Never again will I judge a book based on my own laziness to read it lol.
Anyone who knows my reading tastes well knows that I favour character-driven stories over anything else. Though there are a lot of characters in this book, I wouldn’t necessarily say this is character-driven. It feels very much plot-driven.
Although I enjoyed the characters and their devious antics, I didn’t really connect with any of them. I didn’t feel for any of them, they were merely devices to propel the plot forward. Normally this is a big deal-breaker for me. If I can’t connect to a character, I can’t connect to the story. But despite that, I did. I so totally did.
This isn’t the kind of story that needs likeable characters to carry the plot, it carries itself very well on its own and I found I didn’t need to, or even care to, like the characters. I just needed to know how their actions would affect the story.
This is a book of political intrigue, deception, lies, secrets, and all that juicy, delicious royal court drama. I can see how it inspired George RR Martin because it’s very heavy on the politics. It’s basically Game of Thrones set in France in the 1300s.
If you like historical fiction, politics, A Game of Thrones, and even Assassin’s Creed (as this dabbles heavily in Templar lore) then I think you’ll get on well with this.
I started this thinking it wouldn’t be for me (don’t know why, I love historical fiction), and in doing so have made a mistake. Now I want to continue the series but I’m on a strict book-buying-ban until I reduce my TBR pile, and I know that by the time I’m ready to buy more books and continue the series, I’ll have forgotten what happened. It may be that I need to reread this at some point in the future cause I’m keen to continue one day.
Watch this space.
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