A Tale of the Last Knight of the Round Table Seven years after the death of Arthur Pendragon, Sir Percival, the last surviving knight of the Round Table, returns to Albion after a long and futile quest for the Holy Grail. The peaceful and prosperous home that he left a decade earlier is no more. Camelot has fallen, and much of the Pendragon s kingdom has been subjugated by the evil Morgana and … the Norse invaders who once served under her banner. Although the knight desires only to return to his ancestral lands and to live in peace, he vows to pursue one last quest before he rests to find Guinevere, the Queen of the Britons. This journey will force the knight to travel the length and breadth of Albion, to overcome the most fearsome and cunning of enemies, and to embrace a past that is both painful and magnificent.”The Return of Sir Percival” is the tale of a knight who seeks peace, but finds only war, of a Queen who has borne sorrow and defeat, but who will not yield, and of a valiant people determined to cast of the yoke of their oppressors. It is also a tale of tragedy and triumph, and of romance lost and then found. The unique vision of the Arthurian world brought to life in S. Alexander O Keefe s “The Return of Sir Percival” takes readers on a journey that is as enthralling as it is memorable.”
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I received a copy of this book from Greenleaf Book Group Press and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
I’m a fan of British medieval history and have read all of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon books, several of Ellis Peter’s Brother Cadfael novels, T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, and other books set in that period that don’t come to mind at the moment. When I saw this was available on Net Galley without approval, I down loaded it and looked forward to a good read, especially after seeing the five star reviews on Good Reads.
The novel is set roughly 10 years after Morgana defeated King Arthur. Sir Percival had been dispatched on a quest for the Holy Grail and so was on his way to the Holy Land when Arthur and most of the knights of the Round Table were killed, thus escaping their fate. It begins with a quite promising sea battle in which Percival and his companion, Capussa, all but single-handedly defeat the Norse raiders who have attacked the ship they are sailing back to Albion (Britain) aboard.
But for me, there is something off with this novel that kept me from being immersed in the story and the characters and greatly diminished my enjoyment. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is a paragon of virtue except Morgana, who is the embodiment of everything evil. Sigh. The characters of Percival, Guinivere, are Capussa are totally noble and self-sacrificing and did not feel real to me. All the men had muscles of iron, which was pointed out every time one of them took his shirt off. And Morgana smiled evilly far too often.
The omniscient narration of the book grated after a bit as well. I can deal with multiple points of view in novels, but when the POV shifted back and forth between the good guys and Morgana I felt like I was watching a tennis match. There was one surprising event that occurred during the final battle that the omniscient narrator hadn’t told us about in advance and I enjoyed that little surprise.
I’ve read the advice to authors many times to “show, don’t tell”. I didn’t get that feeling reading this book. In fact the back story of Percival was given to us in tales around the campfire at night rather than as flashback chapters, which I’m sure saved space and word count, but was not as compelling or interesting as it could have been. I kept waiting for Something to Happen. The battle scenes were all quite brief and created no real suspense. Maybe Bernard Cornwell has me spoiled.
The author put forth a great deal of effort to ensure historical and geographic accuracy, and I do appreciate that. Although I did wonder that so many of the characters seemed to be able to read and write; I had been under the impression that in the 5th and 6th centuries most people couldn’t.
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Had I not gotten it from Net Galley I wouldn’t have finished it.