Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review – Rage of Swords by David Gilman @AriesFiction @HoZ_Books

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About the Book

1368. Amidst the Hundred Years’ War, alliances must be brokered. The Duke of Clarence, second son of King Edward III, journeys from Paris to marry the daughter of the powerful Lord of Milan. Little does he know that he is heading into a trap.

Luckily the Duke is preceded on the road to Milan by Sir Thomas Blackstone, Master of War, on an urgent mission of his own. Blackstone must get his hands on the gold the Prince of Wales needs to wage successful war in France.

But there is a price on Blackstone’s head, and assassins willing to risk everything to claim it before he even gets to Milan. He must outwit a succession of ever deadlier enemies, and the Master of War has other foes to the ambitions of his son Henry, who has inherited his father’s knack of getting into scrapes. Scrapes that could end in a hangman’s noose…

Format: ebook (532 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 6th November 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Rage of Swords is the ninth book in David Gilman’s ‘Master of War’ series which has seen Thomas Blackstone rise from humble stonemason’s apprentice, to skilled archer fighting the French at the battle of Crécy, to King Edward III’s Master of War. Between the first book and now there’s been a lot of blood spilt and Blackstone (now Sir Thomas Blackstone) has fought many battles, lost many comrades, suffered personal tragedy and defied death on numerous occasions.

At the end of my review of the previous book, To Kill A King, I posed the question: will Blackstone live to fight another day? Well, unquestionably he has but you can’t fight as many battles as Blackstone has without succumbing to serious injury. However, when has Blackstone ever let a little thing like that get in the way of fulfilling a mission he’s been given?

This time Blackstone and his band of loyal followers find themselves caught up in the rivalry and intrigue between the various dukedoms of Northern Italy. It’s a world where alliances are regularly made and broken, assassination is a path to power and ruthless men rule through fear. Add to that the presence of roving bands of routiers, mercenary soldiers happy to fight for the highest bidder or to change sides when they get a better offer.

Safe to say Blackstone’s mission to ensure the safe arrival of Prince Lionel, Duke of Clarence in Milan to forge an important alliance through marriage doesn’t go entirely to plan. And he has two additional things to worry about. Firstly, he needs to find a way of transporting the huge dowry the marriage will bring to the Prince of Wales in France, something that will take all his cunning to achieve. And secondly Blackstone’s son Henry is riding in the Prince’s escort under an assumed name for his protection. Henry is the chink in his father’s armour (if you’ll pardon the pun), a reminder of the woman Blackstone loved and lost under tragic circumstances, although the father and son relationship is to say the least testy.

It gets even more strained when Henry becomes obsessed with searching for someone he believes to be in danger. Although, as it turns out, Henry’s time studying at Oxford proves just as useful as his swordmanship.

As in previous books, there is plenty of full-throated, bloody action: a riverside ambush, one-to-one combat in an underground vault and a battle against seemingly impossible odds. Fortunately, such is Blackstone’s leadership, his men will follow him anywhere. ‘A swarm of armed men followed him, driving their bodies for a last effort. Ignoring exhaustion. Dry-mouthed, Barely able to bellow defiance.’

On plenty of occasions Blackstone has to rely on his ill-natured ‘bastard horse’, his trusty Wolf Sword or his sixth sense for danger to dodge death. ‘”You risked everything.” “A common failing of mine,” said Blackstone.’ And at the end of the book there remains an implacable enemy who now has even more reasons to want Blackstone dead. As his trusty companion Sir Gilbert Killbere observes, ‘Our path is paved with the dead.’ To which Blackstone responds, ‘It always will be.’

Whether you’ve followed Thomas Blackstone’s adventures from the beginning or you’re looking for a new series where the action comes thick and fast, you’ll find Rage of Swords a thrilling read.

I received a digital review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Action-packed, authentic, compelling
Try something similar: Essex Dogs by Dan Jones

About the Author

Author David Gilman

David Gilman has enjoyed many careers, including paratrooper, firefighter, and photographer. An award-winning author and screenwriter, he is the author of the critically acclaimed Master of War series of historical novels, and was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for The Last Horseman. He was longlisted for the same prize for The Englishman, the first book featuring ex-French Foreign Legionnaire Dan Raglan. David lives in Devon.

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Nonfiction November – Book Pairings #NonFicNov25

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Nonfiction November 2025

Nonfiction November is an annual challenge hosted by bloggers Liz at Adventures in Reading, Frances at Volatile Rune, Heather at Based on a True Story, Rebekah at She Seeks Nonfiction and Deb at Readerbuzz designed to celebrate all things nonfiction. Helpfully, there are a series of weekly prompts to guide your posts.

This week’s prompt is hosted by Liz at Adventures in Reading who invites us to pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.  I’ve come up with three pairs and, for good measure, there’s a link between the final two pairs.

My first pairing is M. R. James: An Informal Portrait by Michael Cox, published by the Oxford University Press in 1983, and Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James, published in 2011. Cox’s biography of Montague Rhodes James, the celebrated author of ghost stories, describes his early life and his time as dean and provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and later as provost of Eton College. It also provides a picture of society and especially the academic world of the time. Collected Ghost Stories contains all of James’s published ghost stories, including many that have been adapted for television. (In 2024 Mark Gatiss, who has been responsible for some of the recent adaptations, presented the BBC Four programme, M. R. James: Ghost Writer.)

My second pairing is Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. Take Courage is the author’s personal journey into the life and work of a woman she believes has been sidelined by history, overshadowed by her older siblings. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne’s second and final novel, is the story of Helen Graham, a mysterious woman who arrives at Wildfell Hall with her young son, seeking refuge from a dark and painful past. Helen’s secret diary reveals her struggles to break free from her destructive marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. Anne’s depiction of alcoholism and debauchery was considered shocking at the time but the novel is now considered to be one of the first feminist novels.

My final pairing is Daphne du Maurier’s nonfiction work, The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë and her most famous novel, Rebecca. In her biography of Branwell, du Maurier describes how, unable to deal with the failure to sell his paintings or get his books published, he retreated into alcohol and laudanum resulting in his early death. (It has been suggested that Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is loosely based on Branwell.) In Rebecca, a shy young woman (who is never named) falls in love with handsome widower Maxim de Winter and agrees to marry him. When they arrive at her husband’s home, Manderley, she feels overshadowed by his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, (perhaps in the same way Branwell felt overshadowed by his sisters) who died in mysterious circumstances, and is intimidated by Manderley’s sinister housekeeper, Mrs Danvers.