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Lord of the Silver Bow

by David Gemmell

Reviewed by Coral


Helikaon is a man scarred by his past. He was witness to his mother's suicide as a child; the father who bullied and terrorized him was brutally killed by an assassin that Helikaon has spent years, unsuccessfully, trying to find. The innocent, scared little boy he was is long gone. In his place is a cold and sometimes cruel man, hated by the Mykene world and, on occasions, feared by his own people.

Andromache only wants to be left alone on Thera, to be a priestess and to escape the world of men. But, when her younger sister dies of a fever, she suddenly finds herself substituted as the bride-to-be of Hektor, prince of Troy. Now she is being torn away from the life she loves and thrust into the strange and dangerous world of Trojan royalty.

Argurios is a Mykene warrior who finds himself longing for the past. Honored warrior and companion of King Atreus, he finds himself on the outside of King Agamemnon's closest friends and advisors. His is a world of honor and loyalty, one he finds sorely lacking from Mykene under its new king. But he is a proud and faithful Mykene, and if his king asks him to sail to Troy and spy on its defenses, then that is what he'll do.

As all three make their way to Troy, they find that their fates are inexplicably linked to each other, and to the city that, unknowingly, finds itself on the brink of war.

Oh man, how long am I going to have to wait before I can get my hands on the sequel?

I might get annoyed with him for never publishing the Drenai novels in any kind of order, but David Gemmell is, by far, my favorite author.

His books always feel so real, no candy-coating of what life was probably like back then. I love that the line between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" is almost non-existant, as each commit brutal and atrocious acts in a never ending circle of revenge and violence.

I love his plot twists, and how nothing is ever as simple as it appears in his books.

I even love how he writes the romance sub-plots, which says a lot about him as an author, because that's usually the part I hate most about a book. I love that love doesn't conquer all, and that it isn't always enough in the end.

Just, an overall amazing book.

Grade: A