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sterling8 's review for:

1356 by Bernard Cornwell
4.0

I haven't read the other books in the Thomas Hookton series, so some of the character development was probably not evident to me. However, the author put enough backstory exposition in the book that I was able to follow along and I think the backstory wasn't so much as to bog down the book.

This book was about both a quest for a magic sword and the Battle of Poitiers. I'm interested in medieval history and enjoyed, as always, Cornwell's discussion of military history and tactics as he brought the battle alive. I'm not sure how well the sword story and the battle story gelled, strange as that may sound.

Cornwell is definitely an Anglophile- his English characters were all more heroic than the French characters in this book. The battle, while interesting, wasn't as engrossing to me as some of Cornwell's other works. If you like this author, you'll definitely like this book, although I think I've read stronger ones by him.