Brandon — Tudor Knight by Tony Riches: Review

I received a copy of Tony Rich­es’ Bran­don — Tudor Knight for review pur­pose. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est feel­ings on the book.

Brandon — Tudor Knight
by Tony Riches

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: Decem­ber 3, 2018
Pre­seli Press
eBook; ASIN: B07L3YGBWJ

Genre: Historical/Tudor/Biographical

 

 

From the author of the inter­na­tion­al best­selling Tudor Tril­o­gy comes a true sto­ry of adven­ture, court­ly love and chival­ric loyalty.

Hand­some, charis­mat­ic and a cham­pi­on jouster, Sir Charles Bran­don is the epit­o­me of a Tudor Knight. A favourite of King Hen­ry VIII, Bran­don has a secret. He has fall­en in love with Henry’s sis­ter, Mary Tudor, the beau­ti­ful wid­owed Queen of France, and risks every­thing to mar­ry her with­out the King’s consent.

Bran­don becomes Duke of Suf­folk, but his loy­al­ty is test­ed fight­ing Henry’s wars in France. Mary’s pub­lic sup­port for Queen Cather­ine of Aragon brings Bran­don into dan­ger­ous con­flict with the ambi­tious Boleyn fam­i­ly and the king’s new right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell.

Torn between duty to his fam­i­ly and loy­al­ty to the king, Bran­don faces an impos­si­ble deci­sion: can he accept Anne Boleyn as his new queen?

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My Review

I’ve had an inter­est in The Tudors for years–to the point that one of the man­u­scripts I’m cur­rent­ly query­ing is all about Anne Boleyn (learn more about my upcom­ing chap­book, Boleyn, here).  When Amy from HFVBT reached out about the blog tour for Bran­don — Tudor Knight, I could­n’t get to my com­put­er quick­ly enough to jump on board!

My appre­ci­a­tion for Charles Bran­don admit­ted­ly first came from The Tudors and Hen­ry Cav­il­l’s por­tray­al (as did my appre­ci­a­tion for Superman–sense a trend?).  Regard­less, I’d only touched upon Bran­don’s actu­al sto­ry in my more aca­d­e­m­ic stud­ies of the era, so I was excit­ed to get some back­ground with Rich­es’ novel.

That excite­ment def­i­nite­ly paid off in read­ing this nov­el, and I def­i­nite­ly think I’ll be doing some more research of my own into Charles Bran­don.  I had­n’t realised just how many wives and chil­dren he had, much less how many he lost, and I had only bare­ly grasped his hum­ble origins.

Of course, the biggest draw for many read­ers in this book will be the love sto­ry between Charles and Mary.  It’s a rel­a­tive­ly clas­sic tale of a Princess falling for some­one beneath her sta­tion and, as Bran­don moves through the ranks of Tudor court over time, his chival­rous quest to save her time and again. One of the most strik­ing images for me, even after fin­ish­ing the nov­el, was that of Mary giv­ing him her favour before a joust. It hap­pens two times in the nov­el (that I recall) and is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly an incred­i­bly inti­mate, yet intrin­si­cal­ly pub­lic moment between the two that’s absolute­ly striking.

My only major com­plaint about this book (and bare­ly a com­plaint, at that) was that there is an awful lot packed into just over 300 pages.  From just read­ing the back cov­er, I’d expect­ed a much heav­ier focus on the last bit of the sto­ry and the con­flict with the Boleyns, rather than a major­i­ty of Charles Bran­don’ life.  Of course, it’s far bet­ter to have more going on in a nov­el like this than not enough, so I’m very grate­ful that it kept me enter­tained and high­ly interested!

Despite this and a few minor page for­mat­ting errors toward the end, I tru­ly enjoyed read­ing Bran­don — Tudor Knight. As I fin­ished, I was excit­ed to see just how many Tudor fig­ures Rich­es has writ­ten about and I’ll most def­i­nite­ly be keep­ing my eye out for more of his books to add to my collection.

About the Author

Tony Rich­es is a full-time writer and lives with his wife in Pem­brokeshire, West Wales. After sev­er­al suc­cess­ful non-fic­tion books, Tony turned to nov­el writ­ing and wrote ‘Queen Sac­ri­fice’, set in 10th cen­tu­ry Wales, fol­lowed by ‘The Shell’, a thriller set in present day Kenya. A spe­cial­ist in the his­to­ry of the ear­ly Tudors, he is best known for his Tudor Tril­o­gy. Tony’s oth­er inter­na­tion­al best sell­ers include ‘War­wick ~ The Man Behind the Wars of the Ros­es’ and ‘The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham’.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it Tony’s web­site and his blog The Writ­ing Desk. He can also be found on Face­book, Twit­ter, and Goodreads.

Blog Tour Schedule

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 28
Review at Pas­sages to the Past

Fri­day, March 1
Fea­ture at Celti­cLa­dy’s Reviews
Review at Locks, Hooks and Books

Mon­day, March 4
Inter­view at Pas­sages to the Past

Tues­day, March 5
Review at Don­na’s Book Blog

Wednes­day, March 6
Guest Post at Encour­ag­ing Words from the Tea Queen

Thurs­day, March 7
Fea­ture at T’s Stuff

Fri­day, March 8
Excerpt at The Book Junkie Reads

Mon­day, March 11
Guest Post at On the Tudor Trail

Tues­day, March 12
Review at His­do­ryan
Fea­ture at To Read, Or Not to Read

Wednes­day, March 13
Review at For the Sake of Good Taste

Thurs­day, March 14
Excerpt at Myths, Leg­ends, Books & Cof­fee Pots

Fri­day, March 15
Review at Coffee and Ink
Review at A Darn Good Read

Sun­day, March 17
Review at His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion with Spirit

Mon­day, March 18
Review at Maid­en of the Pages
Review at Svet­lana’s Reads and Views

Tues­day, March 19
Review at The Tudor Enthusiast
Review at Just One More Chapter

Giveaway

Dur­ing the Blog Tour we will be giv­ing away a paper­back copy of Bran­don-Tudor Knight! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Give­away Rules

– Give­away ends at 11:59pm EST on March 19th. You must be 18 or old­er to enter.
– Give­away is open internationally.
– Only one entry per household.
– All give­away entrants agree to be hon­est and not cheat the sys­tems; any sus­pi­cion of fraud is decid­ed upon by blog/site own­er and the spon­sor, and entrants may be dis­qual­i­fied at our discretion.
– The win­ner has 48 hours to claim prize or new win­ner is chosen.

Bran­don Tudor Knight