Review: Sands of Bone by Logan D. Irons

Blurb:

Ninety years have passed since the Christians wrested control of Jerusalem from their foes, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s army is a pile of corpses strewn about the Horns of Hattin. The few survivors stumble back for the only place of refuge spared of Saladin’s wrath, Jerusalem.

Robert Cutnose reluctantly joins with the Lord Balian de Ibelin in an attempt to defend a city of refugees from Saladin's army. Both men have drawn the ire of old enemies within the Order who secretly wish to bring them down. And hidden within Saladin’s ranks, assassins lurk, cultivating their own end to the conflict. Even while the city teeters on the brink of annihilation, a princess seeks to assert her birthright over the crown. The fate of Cutnose and the Kingdom of Jerusalem hangs by a thread, and there is no guarantee of survival of anyone involved.

Continue the gritty war-torn journey through the crusades and the Noctis Bellum, a shadow war spanning centuries between the Order and the Hunted. Filled with legendary characters both barbaric and gray, driven by valor and treachery alike, the Oaths of Blood Saga is an action-packed grimdark historical fantasy best for fans of Joe Abercrombie, Bernard Cornwell, Jay Kristoff, and John Gwynne.

Book 2 in this war-filled journey through the crusades and into the depths of the ancientNoctis Bellum. Filled with legendary characters both barbaric and gray, driven by valor and treachery alike!

Review:

Medieval steel v steel action in another gripping, gruesome and gritty historical fantasy fiction entry from Mr Irons. 

This is the 2nd book of a trilogy, started earlier this year and continues 90 years after the events of the first book. Our main character, Cutnose is still alive and kicking after his previous conversion to the werewolf cast.

We enter the plot with the Crusaders facing an attritional fight against Saladin in the middle east, struggling against a lack of water and their opposition’s guerilla warfare.

Cutnose is captured as part of Saladin’s attack on the Christians but they wanted him alive as he is a renowned warrior and so goes to meet Saladin himself.

As he earns his freedom saving Saladin from an assassin, he finds his way to Jerusalem and thus ends up trapped into defending the city, working under a Lord and his daughter, the princess and future queen, against the coming Saracen hoards.

We’re then introduced to the other factions more focused on the hunting of the werewolves, assassinations, and collecting holy relics.

However this doesn’t take much of the attention away from Saladin’s attempts to capture Jerusalem and Cutnose and the Queen’s attempts to stop him. Politics between different factions, an attempt to overthrow royalty and more wolf-bloods are thrown into the mix just to keep us on our toes! There’s even a little love interest for our protagonist.

Overall this is an excellent follow up and middle book. The longer page count allows Irons to develop conversations and details within the environment and between characters and creates a deeper, more fulfilling world between the intense action scenes. This is something I criticised in the last book so it’s great to see improvements. Irons also added more subterfuge, politics and deceptions throughout and while sometimes a little transparent, it’s a clear step to creating a bigger more involved world where there are more than the “good/evil” motivations, thus showing us a more intriguing setting.

The action scenes are still fast paced, powerful and grandiose in nature. Irons has added more grit and descriptiveness to the fights and I especially love the alternative perspective and dialects we see once Cutnose transforms into his wolf form. The way the wolf perceives and describes humans, weapons, horses etc is an interesting take and I enjoyed seeing its personality and ambitions and how that differs from the man.

I read most of this book via audible, though I read about 15% of it physically. Unfortunately I have to say that the narrator wasn’t to my liking. He sounded quite robotic with his delivery and struggled to differentiate the character's voices well. The plot is also a little limited in scope, focused mostly around Jerusalem being attacked with little to no ventures away from the defence of the city.

Some of the prose was still a little janky; sentences were often short and repetitive in nature when it wasn’t needed. And there was a lot of “<character> said. Then… <character> said”. It’s a hard skill to master but whilst listening to the audio it jarred me out of the immersion slightly. 

“We have incurred God’s Wrath. …there is only one thing greater. The wrath of my wife”

In conclusion; a worthy follow up in this trilogy, Irons is clearly an expert in this realm of history and has a passion for fast, gruesome and descriptive fight scenes to power his story along. Showing huge improvements in character development and world building, I am excited to see how this story ends!