Harlequin: Book 1 (The Grail Quest)

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Skeat persuades the earl to try a new plan. Thomas has discovered a weak spot. The earl lets Thomas lead an assault. Things go awry, but Thomas and his men get into the city anyway and open the gates. Then the murdering, pillaging and raping begin. Jekyll attempts to rape Jeanette, but is stopped by the earl. The earl is obliged to give Jekyll Jeanette's property as spoils of war, but he places Jeanette and her young son under royal protection. Mainly because I couldn't find a character I liked. Both sides, the English and the French were not blameless in this war. Both sides committed atrocities, and yet both sides also had a few "good" people.

I don't read Cornwell's Sharpe's series and am only interested in reading books of his such as the Saxon Series, Stonehenge & the Warlord Chronicles. This is the first in the Grail Quest series. The other two are Vagabond and Heretic. Here in Australia, this book is published under the title 'Harlequin', in America, it is published under the title 'The Archer's Tale'. El desenlace final es insuperable, la batalla de Crecy. El ejército inglés arrinconado, tras un periodo de acoso y de tierra quemada por parte de los franceses, consigue escapar de una última trampa entre los ríos Sena y Somme. Escaso de suministros, escaso de flechas, escaso de hombres, eligen bien el terreno en una colina sobre el pueblo de Crecy y esperan al infinitamente superior ejército francés con miles de caballeros y ballesteros...y pagados de si mismos, sucumben al peor de los pecados, la soberbia. El desastre está muy bien narrado por Cornweel y merece la pena.....leñe, si casi dan pena los pobres gabachos. What is follow is brutal warfare between England and France causing devastation, brutality and savagery, and that will end in this particular book with the gruesome and decisive Battle of Crecy.

That being said, the character development wasn't great, but the battle scenes were epic. This is the way History class should have been taught! In Hookton, Sir Giles Marriott, Father Ralph's old friend, gives Thomas a book that his father wrote which may contain encrypted information about the Grail. A French priest brings word from Sir Guillaume asking for Thomas's help; he has been outlawed (because of his actions in the Battle of Crécy) and his castle is under siege. Los orgullosos caballeros franceses despreciaban este arma, como instrumento de la plebe. La mayoría pagó con su vida este desprecio. Cornwell's first book of the trilogy focuses on a young man who is learning to become an archer is a small English village along the coast. His father is the parish priest who has a secret of a long and noble past. Anyway, the village is raided by French raiders and one of them turns out to be his distant cousin who is searching for an old lance supposedly being the lance that was used on Jesus Christ.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is a look into the horrors or war and while extremely well written, it was difficult for me at times. While there is no character who could replace Uhtred in my heart, Thomas is special in his own way. He's a reluctant champion for the grail and the lance, and he's mostly a good Christian, though he has some doubts (St. Guinefort is hysterical to me). I adored Skeat and Father Hobbe and Sir Guillaume, and sort of in a strange way, the Prince, though you don't see much of him. I had a hot/cold relationship with Jeanette. I really wanted to love her, but couldn't in the end respect the way she treated Thomas. La verdad es que se lleva 4.5 Estrellas. Pero en comparación con la serie de sajones y vikingos, con mi querido Uhtred, creo que está un escalón por debajo. Many battles have been fought, people slaughtered, churches robbed, souls destroyed, young women and virgins deflowered, respectable wives and widows dishonored; towns, manors and buildings burned, and robberies, cruelties and ambushes committed on the highways. Sir William Douglas - uncle of Robbie Douglas, captured at the Battle of Neville's Cross by Lord OuthwaiteVagabond is the second novel in The Grail Quest series by English author Bernard Cornwell, first published in 2002. Set during the first stage of the Hundred Years' War, it follows Thomas of Hookton's quest to find the Holy Grail, a relic which will grant decisive victory to the possessor.

Will Skeat - Thomas's friend and leader, a mercenary captain in the service of the Earl of Northampton Our young archer also encounters an enemy knight, who serves as a thorn in his side, and, well, tries to kill him during several instances. Tale ends with the young archer having to go to the southern parts of France, during off war season times, to heal a friend and further investigate what his cousin is up to (i.e. BTW, since the trilogy title gives it away, it's a search for the Holy Grail b/c the cousin is from a heretic line called the Cathars who were believed to have held the Grail). Estamos en 1346, los primeros compases de la guerra de los 100 años. Los 3 hijos de Felipe IV "El hermoso" han muerto sin descendencia (recordad la maldición de Jacques de Molay). Eduardo III de Inglaterra reclama sus derechos como nieto de "El hermoso", pero estos son rechazados en favor del sobrino Felipe (de "El hermoso"), hijo de su hermano Carlos de Valois, que asciendo al trono como Felipe VI y primer rey francés de la dinastía Valois. Cornwell was born in London in 1944. His father was a Canadian airman, and his mother, who was English, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and brought up in Essex by the Wiggins family, who were members of the Peculiar People, a strict Protestant sect who banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine. After he left them, he changed his name to his birth mother's maiden name, Cornwell.I would also compare to The Martian by Andy Weir or Daemon by Daniel Suarez. Each is a great story, great adventure, great narrator. The Grail Quest is a historical fiction novel series written by Bernard Cornwell dealing with a 14th-century search for the Holy Grail, set during the opening stage of the Hundred Years' War.