This is a chunky boy! And at times is felt like a bit of a slog for me, there was a lot of character development early on, which was great but coupled with information overload it made the reading at times a little slow and I found myself taking frequent breaks just to digest the information and make sure I was keeping up with all parts of the story. I do appreciate that such attention was given to character development at the start of the book as well as the context of the Thirty Years’ War which I myself only knew a bit about.
The story itself revolves around Jacques (Jack), a boy who after being in a fight ends up at his boss’s house, recovers and eventually works at his estate. There he befriends the housekeeper and this sets him on a path across Europe on a mission of vengeance! We follow Jack as he grows up, learning new skills, information and meeting a slew of new characters all in the setting of the war and the bloodshed and turmoil that comes with it.
I enjoyed the mix of old and new language in this book and found that it works quite well without over complicating the writing style. The plot moves along at a good pace and clear time and effort went into developing the range of characters that we come across in this book which makes them well-defined and interesting.
Once I got through the start of the book I enjoyed it a lot more, and I would say stick with it if the detailed start is a little off putting, it’s worth it! The story then flows and the characters become ingrained in memory and I look forward to reading how Jack’s story continues in the next book.
The story itself revolves around Jacques (Jack), a boy who after being in a fight ends up at his boss’s house, recovers and eventually works at his estate. There he befriends the housekeeper and this sets him on a path across Europe on a mission of vengeance! We follow Jack as he grows up, learning new skills, information and meeting a slew of new characters all in the setting of the war and the bloodshed and turmoil that comes with it.
I enjoyed the mix of old and new language in this book and found that it works quite well without over complicating the writing style. The plot moves along at a good pace and clear time and effort went into developing the range of characters that we come across in this book which makes them well-defined and interesting.
Once I got through the start of the book I enjoyed it a lot more, and I would say stick with it if the detailed start is a little off putting, it’s worth it! The story then flows and the characters become ingrained in memory and I look forward to reading how Jack’s story continues in the next book.