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A Kingdom's Cost

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Rowan
Bibliophile
Posts: 1462
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: I love history, but it's boring in school. Historical fiction brings it alive for me.
Preferred HF: Iron-Age Britain, Roman Britain, Medieval Britain
Location: New Orleans
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A Kingdom's Cost

Post by Rowan » Mon August 18th, 2014, 1:11 pm

Eighteen-year-old James Douglas can only watch, helpless, as the Scottish freedom fighter, William Wallace, is hanged, drawn, and quartered. Even under the heel of a brutal English conqueror, James's blood-drenched homeland may still have one hope for freedom, the rightful king of the Scots, Robert the Bruce. James swears fealty to the man he believes can lead the fight against English tyranny.

The Bruce is soon a fugitive, king in name and nothing more. Scotland is occupied, the Scottish resistance crushed. The woman James loves is captured and imprisoned. Yet James believes their cause is not lost. With driving determination, he blazes a path in blood and violence, in cunning and ruthlessness as he wages a guerrilla war to restore Scotland's freedom. James knows he risks sharing Wallace's fate, but what he truly fears is that he has become as merciless as the conqueror he fights.


******

This is one of the few books I snagged off Bookbub recently that I truly enjoyed. Actually, scratch that. I got Book #2 of this trilogy off Bookbub and after chapter one, I realised that it was the second book in a series. So I shut down book 2 and grabbed this one off Amazon.

The book opens in France where James has been living out of reach of Edward Longshanks and he's just learned of his father's death. The book ends right after the Battle of Loudoun Hill.

I cannot call myself an authority on any period of history, but this book seems to align itself with the known history of both Robert the Bruce and James Douglas. On occasion it felt more like a book about Robert than about James, but not the whole time. And I wouldn't say James was ever portrayed as a man afraid of becoming as merciless as Edward I. In fact, I believe it is he who makes the suggestion that after the Battle of Methven (where the Scots were badly routed) they should harry the English in a guerrilla warfare.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys this period of Scottish history. I'm well into the second book. :)

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