Goodreads: Master of War: Defiant Unto Death (Master of War #2)

Author: David Gilman

Published: 12th February 2015 (Head of Zeus)

Rating: 3/5 (Liked it)

Official Summary: “The Black Prince has launched a devastating raid deep into France, laying waste to everything in his path. In response, the French have mustered an army that outnumbers the English forces 10 to 1 and and are determined to drive their hated foe from the land after years of bloody conquest.

Sir Thomas Blackstone, the British archer knighted on the field of Crecy, has used the intervening years to forge his own war band and has hacked out his own fiefdom in central France. He knows the English are outnumbered, outmanoeuvred and exhausted… but that will not stop him from fighting his way to one of history’s greatest military victories.

But the field of battle is not only arena in which Blackstone will have to fight for his life… Although Poitiers was a great victory for the English its aftermath will cost Blackstone dear.” – Goodreads

Review: I was a bit hesitant to start the second in the series. I was expecting it to be very samey as the first. I was very wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by the story and all the areas it when into. It wasn’t all fighting like the first, it calmed down in that area. That not to say the pace wasn’t set high in a number of places. The tension was built in different areas, his family and you got to see the other side’s story. It added different tones to the world being built around Thomas.

Seeing different viewpoints, added to the story. It wasn’t done every other chapter, which sometimes can become annoying.