Customer Reviews

Warrior (Blades of the Rose)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Warrior is the beginning of an exciting new series of historical fantasy romance novels -- three of my favorite kinds of fiction rolled into one. I've been eagerly awaiting these books.

The Blades of the Rose are men and women who work to preserve the freedom of magic in a mid- to late-Victorian fantasy version of our own world. The Blades exist primarily to fight against the Heirs of Albion, a powerful society of men dedicated to finding and controlling the sources of magic in order to bring the entire world under British rule. Each book tells the story of one couple finding love while fighting against the Heirs.

In Warrior, most of the story takes place on the Mongolian steppes. The heroine, Thalia, is the daughter of a Blade, eager to experience her first mission. The hero, Gabriel, has recently left the British army and finds himself in the midst of her mission due to his sense of honor and desire for adventure. As they try to beat the Heirs to a magic source, they also fall in love.

This book has lots of adventure and fight scenes, like the Indiana Jones movies that the cover reminds you of. And yet there is time for both main characters to reflect on their feelings for each other, so the reader gets to watch the relationship develop from both perspectives. There is humor, excitement, passion -- the adventure plot and the romance plot are integrated in a way that really works for me. It's clear that their shared adventure is bringing the couple closer together, and yet the demands and dangers of that adventure could also separate them forever. The success of their mission and the success of their relationship become intertwined, in the tradition of the best romantic suspense novels.

Another thing I love about this book is that Thalia and Gabriel are equals. Not that they don't have some gender bias to overcome, but it's clear to the reader that they need to be equal partners to succeed, and of course that eventually becomes clear to them, too. They have to learn to trust each other, and to work together, but she's no damsel in distress and she kicks ass equally with him.

The world of the book is evoked very well, I thought. The author creates a very complex and detailed setting, particularly in Mongolia, but I never felt that I got bogged down in description or explanation. There is some necessary background information, but it's introduced naturally and not as "info dump." I got lost in the place, the characters and the story and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

I'm going to join the ranks of the reviewers who've said, "This should have been a five star read for me, but it wasn't."

Indiana Jones went back in time with videos of The Lord of the Rings and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and then used them as inspiration for a collaboration with the cast of a Gilbert and Sullivan show.

It's a great idea, and turned out to be pretty good.

One huge issue I had was that some major idealistic modern ideas were projected onto all of the characters. It's the nineteenth century and yet the heroine was welcomed into secret men's business with open arms. There was no conflict whatsoever between different cultures and races. I had about a thousand times more culture shock moving between England and Australia in the present day than the English hero had being dumped in the middle of the Gobi Desert in the 1800s!

Even so, this is an excellently-researched, intelligently-written, original and largely entertaining read. It has all the ingredients of a fantastic book, and at the beginning I was really into it. I thought, Hallelujah! for once I'm going to agree with the masses.

But then about halfway through I started to lose interest.The first half is almost entirely taken up with nothing more than `Gabriel and Thalia gaze longingly at each other, then the trio ride their horses somewhere. Gabriel and Thalia gaze longingly at each other, then the trio ride their horses somewhere. Gabriel and Thalia gaze longingly at each other, then the trio ride their horses somewhere.' You get the picture.
In fact, I put Warrior aside for a while and moved on to other things. I picked it up again a week or two later and tried again, and yes, I finished it, but the spark was gone.

When I returned, it was as though I'd picked up a different book. More was happening (which was great!), but after the chaste first half, Gabriel and Thalia were going at it like rabbits - with apparently no concern whatsoever about pregnancy. That was one of my biggest problems.

We're in Mongolia, for quite the change, where the virtues of the culture are extolled endlessly throughout the narrative. Stuffy old nymphomaniac Queen Victoria is on the throne, doing her world domination thing. Gabriel Huntley is a working-man's Englishman, fresh out of the military and with no idea what to do with the rest of his life. When he cannot stop the murder of a man in a British alleyway, he takes up the quest to deliver the guy's message to some bloke on the other side of the world. When he gets there he discovers the bloke has a broken leg, so it's up to the man's daughter, Thalia Burgess, local, Batu, and Gabriel to go on a magical quest across the countryside to find a magical artefact of some sort or something.

Admittedly, I've never been one to be overly impressed by gadgets, and so all the `cool stuff' we come across didn't get me too excited. But that's my fault, not the author's.

Gabriel was a brilliant character with a unique personality and way of speaking. He put a smile on my face a number of times. He was definitely too perfect (I mean, come on, he's the newcomer and yet he's the only one who seems to be able to win tournaments and rescue others in this new environment?!).

But yay for another blonde hero! As much as I love Mister 6'3" Black-haired, Blue-eyed, Ten years in the Special Forces, variety is the spice of life. If you write me an original hero, I'm going to love you for it.

My problem was with Thalia, who fell flat. Yes, she ticked all the boxes for an interesting heroine, but she didn't have a personality to go with all those dot points for originality. Other than the fact pickings were slim in the plains of Mongolia, I could not comprehend what Gabriel saw in her.

I became so tired of hearing about how much better Thalia was because she wasn't a normal woman of the day (as though being one was worse than poking a stick at the baby Jesus!). It wasn't at all realistic that all the men would have worshipped her for refusing to conform to gender roles of the time. I know it's a nice fantasy, but it's a jarringly incorrect one. It was the nineteenth century, no matter how you look at it.

Thalia's attitudes towards sex, and her willingness to have it without a single thought of pregnancy or reputation didn't sit right for the times. The English females Gabriel was running from - whose lives featured "embroidery and babies" - wouldn't have really been any different to those in this new land. I highly doubt Mongolian women a couple of hundred years ago were on the Pill and giving up the endless pregnancies and the cooking to enter the corporate workforce! I'd have preferred a strong heroine who lived somewhat within the realms of believability for her time, and quotes such as this one:

"Her father had never expected her to fill the traditional female role"

didn't ring true.

The dialogue was sometimes very appropriately British, and sometimes not at all. The past participle of "spit" is "spat". They should have "written to each other", not "written each other". The word "holiday" should have been used. And "gotten" made far too many appearances.
Small complaints, yes, but as I thought the author otherwise did a wonderful job of giving Gabriel in particular a distinctly British personality, they jumped out at me even more than they otherwise would have.

I did appreciate the fact that while the characters were English, the time period and location were different to standard historical fare (historical romance writers would have you believe the only two places that existed before 1880 were southern England and northern Scotland). That, and I loved that the story was a case of the everyman from England up against the great and mighty British Empire.

So, good, but not great. Warrior showed a lot of potential, but didn't quite have that spark I need to love a book. I'm moving onto the next one, and have high hopes for a story set in the Greek Islands. I will see how I go.

I came into Zoe Archer's Blades of the Rose series courtesy of the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, when they chose the second book of the series as a book club read. Pretty much right out of the gate I wanted these books, and I'm not ashamed to admit that a big part of that was because of the covers on Books 1 and 2. First and foremost, I want to thank whoever did the cover art! Gabriel on the cover of Book 1, I'm not ashamed to say, totally slew me for looking like he stole Indiana Jones' outfit, and even aside from that appealing to my fangirl sensibilities, I just found it such a refreshing change from a lot of the shirtless, overmuscled guys on the covers of romance and paranormal romance these days.

Happily, the book itself also proved to be quite enjoyable. Warrior, as the opening book of a series, has the task of setting up the world for us, and it does a nice strong job of doing so by giving us our hero, Gabriel, drawn into saving a man's life in a brutal attack. The man he tries to rescue dies, but not before begging Gabriel to take a message--and a mysterious compass--clear around the world to Mongolia.

Gabriel, you see, has stumbled into the ongoing conflict between two factions at war over magical Sources, artifacts all over the globe which are so named for being the repositories of great power. The Heirs of Albion are bent on securing these Sources for the greater glory of the British Empire, so that Britain might take over the world. Pitted against them are the Blades of the Rose, sworn to avoid using any magic save that which is theirs by gift or by right, and to keep all Sources safe in the hands of their rightful people.

And the man Gabriel has to take the dire message to? He is of course a Blade, living in Mongolia with his daughter Thalia, who is naturally afire with the ambition to follow in her father's footsteps. Neither want to embroil Gabriel in their affairs, but Gabriel won't be put off easily. He has after all come all the way from England at the behest of a dying man. Also, Thalia is awfully, awfully hot.

It's a nifty worldbuilding concept, and Archer has great fun with it, setting up an engaging blend of period adventure and supernatural activity that hearkens indeed back to the aforementioned Indiana Jones as well as the Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser. As these are in fact paranormal romance novels, you do have the obligatory blazing chemistry between the lead characters and more than one sex scene in which they indulge it--but for once, my tastes in such things are actually pretty in line with what a romance novel has to offer with that. Archer's very good at giving her female leads strong sexual agency, and the sense of equality between her heroines and heros is awesome both within and outside of romantic contexts.

In this particular story, as she's been brought up in Mongolia, Thalia is very much afraid that a man from her native Britain will expect her to behave like a proper British lady--and she's delighted to discover that Gabriel, as a commoner and a foot soldier, is just as happy that she's anything but. The two of them must set out to find and protect the Source the Heirs are targeting, and along the way, have themselves quite the adventuresome ride. There's a bit too much obvious pointing at characters who are destined to have their own installments as the series progresses, and a bit too much simplistic motivation on the part of the bad guys. But all in all this was fun and it made me quite interested in continuing with the series. Three stars.

I will admit that what first caught my eyes was the cover of this book. I find it gorgeous. (Indiana Jones anyone? lol) I remember seeing it on someone's sidebar and I had to know more about this book. (see? it sometimes pay to be a cover whore *wink*). I loved the cover but that would not have been enough alone to win me over. The book synopsis promised a mix of adventure and historical romance. I was sold! I can't thank Zoe Archer enough for sending me an ARC.

I loved Warrior. I'm still in a Historical phase (And I needed my fix!) but Warrior is that and so much more. The story takes place in the 1870s, but not in your usual England setting'no it is set in Mongolia! I never thought I would love reading about Mongolia this much. To be truthful the book was a bit slow to start. Well not that nothing happens in the beginning, quite the contrary, so MANY things happened that it made it a bit difficult to 'know' the characters and to like them. But since the moment the characters are introduced to the tribe I couldn't put this book down.

It was a real pleasure to learn more about Mongolian culture and the life in the tribe. I was really fascinated (I even googled 'Mongolian Clothing' to picture it better). Zoe Archer transport us to an exotic country and show us the beauty of it. We get to really know the characters in the second half of the book and I started loving them. The relationship between Thalia and Gabriel became very interesting and we have some very hot scenes. I laughed quite a few times too, Gabriel is sexy AND funny.

Thalia our heroine, is not your typical English Lady. Thalia loves to ride, she knows how to use a crossbow and she wears practical clothes. Most of all she doesn't mind Gabriel swearing and she is not waiting for someone else to save her. She is a strong woman who wants to do something with her life. She believes in the cause she is defending. *pats Thalia's head*. Gabriel is'*drools* 'sorry I mean Gabriel is fantastic. He was in the army and the prospect of living a 'normal' life is just not for him. He didn't think twice before launching himself in this adventure. I really like this hero, his sense of humor and all his swearing are a big part of his charm.

The story is original and it really felt like an adventure. We discover a side of the world we didn't know, a world full of Magic. The story kept on surprising me and I wanted more! We are introduced to some characters that will be the heroes of the following books. And I can't wait! I'm pretty sure I will LOVE Bennett *drools* (Hero of Scoundrel).
I give Warrior 4 1/2 Stars

Caroline.
The HEA Lover
[...]

I bought this book based on all the 5 star reviews. I'm not finishing it. It started out pretty good but by the half way mark in my kindle I started flipping fast forward through the book. It just fizzled for me and left me wondering what else I had in my library to read. Sorry.

In 1874 a league of Englishmen, calling themselves the Heirs of Albion, hunt down the world's Sources of powerful magic, with which they hope to bring the whole world under British rule. A small but daring group of men and women oppose them--the Blades of the Rose.

Warrior is the first installment of the four-part Blades of the Rose series, which is just the smartest, sexiest, most imaginative adventurous romance out there. I recommend it not only to romance readers, but also to fantasy and scifi fans and anyone who likes an action-filled story.

Captain Gabriel Huntley returns home to England after war, but the prospect of a settled, staid future frankly appalls him. Small wonder that after he helps a man in a fight and witnesses deadly magic, he undertakes the mission to deliver a message to someone halfway across the world.

Thalia Burgess, living in outer Mongolia, is the daughter of a Blade and aspires to join their ranks. When she learns that a Source is in danger, she and Gabriel embark on a quest to find and protect it.

Thalia is smart, strong, and capable, but still vulnerable. Gabriel is a fantastic and believable former soldier: intelligent but blunt, not especially eloquent, open to new experiences, and honorable to the core. The Mongolian steppes and culture, rendered in respectful detail, make a gorgeous backdrop to transcendent supernatural experiences, amazing love scenes (one of which is also a transcendent supernatural experience), and thrilling action.

I recommend ordering all four at once because once you finish this book, you'll want to start right in on the next one.

This was my first foray into the historical/fantasy/steam punk genre (I'm usually more of a straight contemporary or historical regency romance reader), and if they are all this well done, I think I've been missing out! This is the first book in a long time that I'm sharing with my Dad because of the unusual outer Mongolia setting, unique Blades of the Rose secret society protecting artifacts, and Indiana Jones-like hero and plot. I won book #2 in the series from Tessa Dare and I just can't wait for it to get here so I can dive in! Gabriel Huntley may be one of my top-10 favorite heroes of all-time. He is absolutely the perfect hero with a capital H. I could completely picture in my head in full-color--his voice, his mannerisms, his attitude, the way he moved. Loved the characterization, and it made the love scenes that much more powerful.

review
Thrilling action paired with interesting, strong characters and a great love story.

After leaving the military Captain Gabriel Huntley plans to lead a quiet and ordinary life in England. But right after arriving back home he stumbles into a mystery. When trying to rescue a stranger from a vicious attack he learns that there is more to the world than the eye can see. He can't prevent the stranger's death but promises to deliver a mysterious message to a man living in Mongolia. After arriving there Huntley meets Thalia Burgess and her father. He knows that Thalia might need his help and together they end up on a dangerous journey that will change their lifes completly. Will Thalia be able to trust Gabriel with her secrets and will they find more than magic on their journey?

I enjoyed reading "Warrior" a lot. The book is set in 1874 and plays mostly in Mongolia. The setting is very fascinating and I loved learning little things about Mongolia and the people there. Both Gabriel and Thalia are awesome characters and I enjoyed every scene with them. Both of them are very strong and it's great that they are equal partners in their relationship. Thalia is an extraordinary heroine and Gabriel is just as great.
There are many funny scenes in this book but also a lot full of action and love. The balance between these scenes felt just right and that's why reading "Warrior" was never boring and always entertaining.
The paranormal part of the story is another highlight. I enjoyed reading about the magic and especially about the fight between the Blades and their power-hungry opponent the Heirs. I'm excited to learn more about both groups and want to know more about the Blades fight for a free world.

cover
I like the cover but would have wished for a male and female character on it.

final appraisal
A great and very entertaining book. The strength of "Warrior" are the strong characters, the thrilling action, the beautiful lovestory and the setting in Mongolia. I already ordered the next two books in the series because I want to read more of the Blades and the mysteries surrounding them.

Wow, I am so pleased that I picked this book up! It was EXCELLENT! I loved the world and the characters so much.

You know how most romances show the pov's of both the hero and heroine? But even then the focus is on the heroine's pov with the hero's pov sprinkled in occasionally? This book had the reverse and I loved it! We spent most of the book firmly in Gabriel Huntley's head. I'm so glad, because his narrative voice and the innate goodness in him made that the best seat in the house.

I loved both Thalia and Gabriel, but I have to admit that Gabriel is my favorite. Being in his head gave me an empathy and love for him that I get with very few heroes. I really wish more authors did this! I loved watching him and Thalia evolve from the people they were in the beginning. They weren't unlikeable early on by any means, but they were different.

Gabriel was a man at loose ends, unsure of his future. He found himself following a path his friend proposed for him because he didn't have anything better in mind. But he jumped at the chance to have a purpose over the one proposed for him and ended up meeting Thalia. He was unsure of himself around "ladies" and was awkward and uncomfortable until he couldn't help but be himself.

Thalia was more Mongol than Englishwoman. The people and most attitudes were so much a part of her that she was a delight to read about. In the beginning she was a woman on a mission to prove herself. She had an opportunity to possibly acquire the status she longed for and she jumped at it. Along the way she and Gabriel became a unit and were much stronger together than they ever were apart. Neither of them would have made it to the end without each other. I thought that was nicely demonstrated by the village contest for the honor of guarding their treasure.

The sense of culture in this book was FABULOUS! I seriously wanted to be there with them enjoying the feeling of being "at home" no matter what ger they were in. The details of the Mongolian people and their traditions were very appreciated. I never felt that the land was "wallpaper" or the people were "caricatures," included only to be a token nod to the land the English people were occupying. The details of their lives down to the details of their wrestling really made me impressed with the author's ability to research and include details without info dumping.

Another thing that I loved about this book was the actual relationship between Gabriel and Thalia. Too often I find the "does he/she love me?" of the main characters to be tedious and forced. I like it at times, but sometimes it's nice to meet a hero and heroine who don't fight their feelings for each other. They embrace them and count themselves lucky to have found each other. That was the case here. I never doubted their attachment to each other, and they both knew they were in love even when they didn't speak of it. The conflict came from the circumstances they were in, not internal angst. It was so refreshing.

I cannot leave this review without mentioning the world. Katyana was completely right when she spoke of her difficulty labeling this book as any one thing. It was a mishmash of things, but it worked perfectly for it. I loved all the steampunk inventions that were brought up. Catullus has a quite brilliant mind, and I cannot wait to get to his book to have a peek inside it. The Heirs were an interesting enemy. I think I liked them more because I can see how their cause can come off as understandable in the beginning. It's only when you get to the deeper motives that you really see how shady it all is.

I CANNOT wait to get my hands on the next three books, Scoundrel, Rebel, and Stranger.

Luckily I already own the second book, so I can jump into Bennett's mind immediately!

I really looked forward to this book and series. The blurb looked so very promising, the reviews were quite raving, the excerpts looked promising. I was actually anxious for a book to come out, and I hadn't been anxious for a new book in a while. Honestly, I was quite frantic.

But I was also slightly worried that maybe I was too enthusiastic, a little too hyped, and that I would end up disappointed.

I'm glad that didn't happen, and yet it wasn't entirely what I expected. It's hard to explain really, I think it's because I wasn't entirely swept away, I didn't feel the rush of NEED TO FINISH THIS NOW. And yet I read it in one go, and only started at 2 in the night. So I did skip sleep for it. So for now, I'm blaming the exams, the weeks of sleep deprivation, and maybe just not being really awake for my sense of "less than expected passion".

On to the things I loved about it, and there's quite a lot of that. For starters the entire set-up is super cool. Historical road trip adventure in Mongolia, with some magic and fantastic elements thrown in, all cosily wrapped around a delicious romance. Or the other way around. I'm not sure what this story's primary genre is really. It's so well balanced, it's a little bit of everything, and entirely it's own thing.

Some people have compared it to Indiana Jones, and I agree uptil a certain point, but Zoe Archer's characters are so much better balanced with each other than Indy and his paramours. Thalia and Gabriel's relationship truly is a relationship of equals (as I haven't found in that many romance novels really). It's touching. And both are a delightful mix of endearing, stubborn, strong personalities.

I adored Gabriel. He's a tough soldier to his bones, but he doesn't have one vicious strike in him. He can be violent and crude, but he's good. Because he's been a soldier all his life, he's also not a ladies man. One of my favorite Gabriel scene's is in the epilogue, where he just starts his journey and meets a girl on a ship.

QUOTE
"This is my first international voyage," the girl continued brightly. She waited, smiling prettily, for his suitable charming response. A light sweat beaded on his back.

"Knew a fellow from Constantinople," Huntley finally said. "Excellent shot. I once saw him shoot a mosquito off a water buffalo's rump."

The girl gaped at him, flushed, then turned and walked away as quickly as she could toward the protective embrace of her mother.
/QUOTE

Still makes me smile.

When he encounters Thalia for the first time he's slightly flustered, because he doesn't know how to act around proper ladies. Lucky for him, Thalia's not quite a lady, brought up as she is in the wild Mongolia by a widowed father. Thalia is an amazing heroïne, strongwilled, wanting to be her own person, very much aware of her strengths and flaws. She really has her act together, and though she knows it's not how a woman is supposed to live, she doesn't really care about that, because she's genuinly happy with who she is.

And Gabriel loves her for that.

QUOTE
"I can't instruct you on proper behavior when courting," she said, "since I'm not precisely the model of genteel manners."
"I'm glad you aren't," he answered with a candor that surprised her.
"This mission wouldn't go too smoothly if I had to watch what I was saying, or if you needed to be coddled."
"For the sake of the mission, then, it's a good thing I'm not a real lady."
This time, he was the one who reached out, putting a hand on her thigh, which caused her to stop in the action of getting to her feet. "I didn't say you weren't a lady, just that you didn't
require cosseting or a bunch of other silly tripe. One doesn't have to entail the other."
/QUOTE

I love how he sees her femininity through her Mongolian manly outfit, her rifle abilities, and the dusty discomforts of travel. I also loved how they fell in love. Even though they don't find each other mind-blowing attractive at start, both their interest is spiked because they find the other different and interesting. The more they get to know each other, the more attractive they find each other, and then there is lustin' and lovin' and it all so nicely intermingles. It's a love both earned and freely given.

And it's truly a relationship of equals. As Gabriel refers to them, an army of two. In this setting, that's something very lovely and valuable.

The only thing I did notice was the lack of dialogue. There's a lot of thinking going on, and I think there could've been a bit more talking. But the dialogue it had was quite awesome.

So I'm floating somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4.5 (and maybe even 5) stars review, and I'm going to let the reread decide on that later. But for now I give Gabriel and Thalia a hug, 4 stars and a Hell Yeah.