Royal Flush by Scott Bartlett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Royal Flush is not the kind of book you'd normally find me reading. It is described by the author as a "medieval comedy with elements of fantasy", and consists of four stories about one central character, the King.
Now the King is a blundering, ridiculous, infuriatingly incompetent kind of king. He has a fondness for executions and wants for little, yet his romantic life is, well, non-existent. To rectify this, the King begins a search for the love of his life, but the romantic bliss he unquestionably believes he deserves is repeatedly interrupted by the inconvenient responsibility of running the Kingdom.
The stories are well-written, witty and easy to follow, constructed in a way that brought back fond memories of 'Blackadder' and 'Monty Python' skits. The only downside to this is that sometimes the "skit" feels endless, the humour of it wearing thin, and the characters come across as a little one-dimensional. I found the King to be quite impersonable, even though his escapades and the constant trouble he finds himself in are definitely chuckle-worthy. The thing about Royal Flush is that there's little depth to it, but in all honesty, I think that's the point. This is a great book for people who are not enthusiastic readers and/or who don't like a lot of drama in their fiction. It's a read that doesn't require a lot of mental effort to keep up with the story and once I came to terms with that I found I was able to enjoy the book more thoroughly.
Oh, and I loved the goat!
Many thanks to the author for inviting me to read and review this novel.
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GIVEAWAY
DETAILS:
The author, Scott Bartlett, has been kind enough to offer one lucky reader of this blog an e-book copy of Royal Flush.
All you have to do to
enter the draw is to leave a comment on this post. Please provide an email address so that if you win the author can get in touch with you to arrange delivery of the e-book. Entries will be taken until
midnight (Australian Central Standard Time) on Thursday, 31 January 2013. The winner will be announced on Saturday, 2 February 2013.
Giveaway is open to
everyone.
Best of
luck!
Wow Blackadder and Monty Python what more could one indeed want in a book about a medieval king. You know my grand-daughter Josie (15) was learning about the medieval era in high school and the teacher showed 'The Life Of Brian' as vision for the subject. What a great idea. Something the kids could easily relate too.
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