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Sasha (A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book I) Paperback – October 27, 2009

by Joel Shepherd (Author)

233 ratings

Book 1 of 4: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book One

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Spurning her royal heritage to be raised by the great warrior, Kessligh, her exquisite swordplay astonishes all who witness it. But Sasha is still young, untested in battle and often led by her rash temper. In the complex world of Lenayin loyalties, her defiant wilfulness is attracting the wrong kind of attention.
Lenayin is a land almost divided by its two faiths: the Verenthane of the ruling classes and the pagan Goeren-yai, amongst whom Sasha now lives. The Goeren-yai worship swordplay and honour and begin to see Sasha as the great spirit—the Synnich—who will unite them. But Sasha is still searching for what she believes and must choose her side carefully.
When the Udalyn people—the symbol of Goeren-yai pride and courage—are attacked, Sasha will face her moment of testing. How will she act? Is she ready to lead? Can she be the saviour they need her to be?

Book 1 of 4

A Trial of Blood and Steel Book One
Print length

421 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pyr
Publication date

October 27, 2009
Dimensions

6.03 x 0.91 x 8.96 inches
ISBN-10

9781591027874
ISBN-13

978-1591027874
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shephard's epic gets off to a slow start as feisty bladeswoman Sasha, her master, her princely brothers and Jaryd, a local heir, lecture one another about religious differences amid a hodgepodge of names and invented terms. Jaryd saves Sasha from treachery after a fight, and the consequences accelerate toward war between the overlord Hadryn and the common Udalyn. Soon Sasha finds herself at the head of an army, facing her honest but deeply conflicted father. Rumors of war outside the kingdom point to larger conflicts down the road. Sasha is young, impetuous and contradictory, but impassioned about doing the right thing if she can figure out what it is. Once Shepherd (the Cassandra Kresnov series) finds his stride, the second half of the book crackles with intriguing characters, witty banter and vivid, realistic battles, leaving readers optimistic about the planned sequels. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Joel Shepherd was born in Adelaide in 1974. He has studied film and television, international relations, has interned on Capitol Hill in Washington, and travelled widely in Asia. He is the author of 12 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, including 'A Trial of Blood and Steel', 'The Cassandra Kresnov Series', and 'The Spiral Wars'. Visit Joel Shepherd's Web site at joelshepherd.com.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 159102787X
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pyr (October 27, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 421 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781591027874
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591027874
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.03 x 0.91 x 8.96 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,145,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #34,979 in Epic Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
233 ratings

About the author

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Joel Shepherd

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Joel Shepherd is the author of 18 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels, including 'The Spiral Wars', 'The Cassandra Kresnov Series' and 'A Trial of Blood and Steel'.

He is also the host of 'The Joel Shepherd Podcast', available at joelshepherd.com and all the usual podcast outlets. Joel lives in Australia, has a degree in International Relations, is a keen cyclist and traveler. He is a member of the South Australian Country Fire Service, is a big music fan, a mediocre drummer, and is currently learning Japanese.

His books have been published in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy and Germany.

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

233 global ratings

5 star		61%
4 star		28%
3 star		6%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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A military fantasy of incredible depth

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2021

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I came to Sasha from the author's Spiral Wars science fiction series because science fiction is my passion, but...in Sasha I've found a story even /better/. And a world so rich with detail that it feels real.
One of the reasons the world building is so amazingly good is because, like Dune, it contains everything - politics, multiple cultures, religions, belief systems, and...languages. Not just a few silly words made up to make you feel as if the language is real, but enough detail to make it obvious that the author /created/ a language for the story.
Do any of these details hit you over the head, slowing down the story and boring the pants off those who only want to read about the battles? No. Shepherd has woven the world building in to the action so you absorb it much like you would absorb the world building in a movie - naturally, a bit at a time.
That same mastery of story is evident in how the author builds the characters. They all have a past. They all have quirks. They all have virtues and faults, but again, discovering the characters is part of the story.
I am more impressed than I can say. More importantly, I LOVE this story, and I'm about to buy more of it.
Cannot recommend Sasha more highly.
Update: In my original review I wrote that I would buy the next story in the series. Unfortunately, I simply cannot afford over $8 for a kindle book. :(

One person found this helpful

Clichéd, but I didn't mind

Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2013

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Sasha made me grin like an idiot, laugh, and cry. However, there were also parts that made me yawn in boredom, or rage at the grammar. Mostly, though, it was a very enjoyable read.

The main character, Sashandra Lenayin, is the daughter of the Varenthane king, but she has renounced that life, and is living in a small town with the "uncivilized" Goeren-yai, practicing swordwork. She doesn't know it, but she is destined to become a hero, a saviour, of both peoples. Yes, it is that cliched. But I didn't really mind.

The characters are well-drawn for the most part. My favourites are Jaryd Nyvar, the pampered nobleman's son; and Sasha's sister Sofy, the spoiled princess. Both surprised and impressed me with their growth over the course of the story. Sasha herself is unfortunately not as interesting; I've seen this character before.

There is one race of nonhumans in this world: the serrin. Unfortunately, we aren't told much about them, except that many Varenthanes think they are demons. The only serrinim who appear as characters show up very near the end, are described as incredibly beautiful, and are deadly fighters. They are nearly perfect in every way. I found myself imagining Tolkien's Elves.

It seems that Joel Shepherd has no idea that comma splices are incorrect grammar. Or he doesn't care. The text is riddled with them. I would probably not be exaggerating if I said that every single page has at least one. There were very few grammar issues besides. In one place, Sasha muses that "her plan trap worked." This jarred me since I've never seen that phrase used before. Another time, Sasha sees a friend and instead of "saying" his name, "'Andreyis?' she recognized." As far as I am aware, "recognized" is not a dialogue tag.

I found that the plot took a long time to get moving for me. It took me over a week to read the first half, then a day or two to finish. I prefer books that I can read faster than that. I used to read everything, no matter what, but I no longer have the time or the energy to do that.

voracious reader

Richly imagined fantasy story but could use some editing

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2016

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The author has a richly imagined fantasy world. He devises alternate languages and interesting cultures. The plot, although consisting of numerous fighting scenes, primarily centers on political matters. He does a good job of creating various political climates and realistic motivations (including fuzzy motivations driven more by gut than thought). The story starts slowly but builds to an exciting climax.

However, the writing itself has problems. He needs a good editor. Specifically, a number of sentences lack verbs. He needs to use semi-colons on some of the longer sentences. He also combines dialogue between characters in one paragraph so it's confusing to track which person is saying what. In trying to create "differentness" he devolves into over use of "y" in all the names of one group. He uses "helm" for helmet but doesn't use other created words for other implements of warfare--I kept thinking about the helm of a ship. If he wanted to create a feeling of a different world then he could have created a new word (as he does for other things) for helmet instead. All these things bog down the reading process, forcing the reader to re-read (incomplete) sentences to get the meaning. Yes, modern writing styles don't necessarily require complete sentences but usually a writer uses very short ones just for emphasis.

I also found myself wanting a bit more background information about the world Shepherd creates. Details unfold slowly and at times seem only sketched rather than fully developed. The action also starts very slowly and in later books takes even longer to get going because of the alternating viewpoints.

This is a good book for people who like the Game of Thrones series. The alternate world has a lot of interesting ideas. It's less graphic and contains much less violence towards women. I found the characters realistic and yet engaging. GOT has better writing but I liked this fantasy world better.

One person found this helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Bob

Didn't like it as much as SF works. Refunded

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 27, 2021

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I returned this for a refund only halfway through the first chapter. Which is the good thing about Kindle. Although I, surprisingly, liked his Phoenix military scifi, and also some of Shepherd's other scifi. This fantasy just bored me. I didn't care.

Robert Mitchell

Great first book in this series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2019

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Interesting world, blending scottish clan, samurai sword play, medieval warfare and politics and surprisingly it really works all hung together by interesting engaging characters, nobody creates strong leading female characters as well as joel weather its fantasy or sci fi, excellent start to the series

Jon Doe

Trials

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 14, 2018

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Still in Book One, but the characters are intriguing, the world well-realised and the story complicated but interesting. Unfortunately, you actually need the character guide at the very beginning of the book to keep track. However, well-worth reading.

ReadingGrump

Solid fantasy ...

Reviewed in Germany on February 26, 2017

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... assuming it's action you are looking for.

While I'm not entirely sure what the setting is based on, it reminds me vaguely Frankish times in Europe; perhaps inspired by a (partially) pagan Germany with a Christian nobility; or perhaps it's inspired by similar situations somewhere else in Europe.
Anyway, while it's less important where the inspiration comes from, the religious situation is a key factor in the book: the country is ruled by pseudo-Christians, but the populace is largely pseudo-pagan. Caught in-between is Sasha, the heroine, one of the country's princess - she is from the pseudo-Christian nobility, but lives with the pseudo-pagans, and is taught swordfighting (and more) by ... a pseudo-Confucian.

Her family wants her to stick with the nobles, the pagans want to use her as a symbol, and her teacher wants her to make her own decisions. To complicate the issues, foreigners meddle, and there's talk about a pseudo-crusade against the pseudo-elves. It's a tense situation, and bad stuff happens to nobody's surprise.

What impressed me much more than the plot (or the characters or the settings...) are the action scenes though: there aren't that many, but in my opinion they are very well written. We get to read about Sasha both in personal combat, as well as in larger warfare, and both are equally good. This is action one can actually imagine while reading. Sasha's unreal skill aside, it's also all fairly "realistic" - if that matters. And it's not like Sasha does anything that, as such, is impossible to do. So that's OK with me.

A solid first book of a solid series, mostly recommended for the action.

"Spoiler": just my opinion, but the 2nd novel and the first parts of the 3rd are the weakest parts of the series. Bad enough to almost get me to quit it. But I stuck with it, and the rest of the third book plus the fourth were a great reward for that. Something to keep in mind, perhaps.

One person found this helpful

larrypilot

sasha

Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2013

Verified Purchase

a fantasy in an imaginary land. lot,s of horses,sword,s,hero,s and one kickass heroine.a good read for the 10 to 16 year old group who like to read. just thinking out loud. l.doyon

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