Defiant Unto Death (Master of War): 2 Paperback – 10 Sept. 2015

This book arrived promptly,is as described,and is being keenly read.

I read the first book of this series and thought it was brilliant, so I read the second and I wasn’t disappointed. Another great story with very likeable recurring characters on Blackstone’s side. There’s plenty of action and you’re just routing for Blackstone’s men and feel sad whenever one is lost. It’s a very good history lesson too! Highly recommended.

Gilman's splendid hero, Thomas Blackstone (now "Sir" Thomas) grows on me with every page. This is the second of the author's hundred years war novels. We join Thomas, happily married to Christiana and with two children, ten years after we left him in the first novel. He is now the adored ruler of several small Norman towns and, at last, treated as an equal by the superior Norman Lords who are his neighbours.But life is never straight forward in 14th century France. Thomas finds himself, reluctantly, being drawn in to Norman conspiracies to depose King John of France. And accounts of his extraordinary achievements as a fighter and leader of men quickly spread throughout the land. They spread as far as Paris, to the court of the King himself. Eventually, the King is prepared to stop at nothing to ensure the death of the English knight. And it soon becomes plain that one of the Norman Lords, thought to be an ally of Thomas, is a traitor, happy to assist the King in his efforts to arrange the death of Blackstone.I must say no more about the first part of the book. But I can fast forward to Poitiers (because we all know what happened there). Blackstone, in this account, is the messenger who brings the news to the Prince of Wales that neither his father nor the Duke of Lancaster can come to his aid. And it is Blackstone who chooses the battleground for one of the greatest English victories of the war. The description of the battle, as with Crecy in the first book, is masterful.The love story also proceeds apace, though there is some rocky ground.I am very much looking forward to the next instalment, due next year.CharlesP.S. It is tiresome of Head of Zeus not to provide page numbers on Kindle editions.

This, the second of David Gilman's Master of War series maintains the quality of story telling from the first book. Like its predecessor it is packed with action and exciting incident. I'm on book three at the moment and I will more than likely buy the subsequent titles, there are seven in all I think.If you are a fan of action packed medieval stories you can't go far wrong with this series.

Good, readable escapism.

Having read the earlier books in this series, I had high hopes for this one and, boy, I wasn't disappointed. This is a rip-roaring tale, told at a cracking pace, and with characters that are so well rounded that the reader really cares about them. Underlying everything is meticulously researched genuine history that explains, remarkably clearly, the huge complexities of the politics of that time. The manner in which a strong fictional character is used to move the reader through genuine history is highly reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell and that is an accolade that few authors of this genre deserve; David Gilman earns his place alongside Cornwell with ease.As seems to be common these days, there is no preamble to the book explaining the story so far and it just dives into the new plot. So much depends upon what has gone before that it would be all but impossible for a new reader to fully enjoy and engage with book without having first read the earlier books in the 'Master of War' series.Just as the main action in the previous book centred upon the battle of Crecy, 'Defiant Unto Death' has, at its core, the battle of Poitiers, It has long intrigued me that the battle of Poitiers is relatively little known, with Azincourt and Crecy attracting the bulk of the interest when, in fact, Poitiers was, arguably, the most defining battle of the age. In this book, the gritty reality of warfare in general and this battle in particular is so well crafted that the reader can almost smell the odours and hear the noises of battle.This is brilliant stuff and I can't wait for the next in the series, 'Gate of the Dead'.

Book 1 was excellent and this was absolutely enthralling. The battles you felt you were actually witnessing the ferocity of what it must have been like. The background story also gripping. Cannot praise the author enough, well done looking for book 3. On par with all the greats, Cornwell, Fabbri, Kane, Turney and all my other favourite authors.David

I sort of fell into this series by chance. It's not a period of time that I would normally read about but one boring weekend I decided to read the first in the series. I'm now officially hooked! I find them to be very reminiscent of the Sharpe novels, and I think that you will enjoy these books if you're a fan of Cornwall, Scarrow, Goldsworthy etc. I'm now off to grab a cup of coffee and then dive into book 3 of the series.