Knight’s Blood by J. Leary

JLeary-Knight's BloodHave you ever read a book, where you wanted to like it but the characters just killed it for you? Well that’s what happened to me with Jason Leary’s Knight’s Blood. The plot had the potential to be interesting/amazing, yet Alexandra Blood and Sonja completely ruined it for me.

In a world where all mythology is real, Alexandra Blood, a former Knight, is called out of hiding when Legion, a secret government organization that polices the supernatural, locates a young girl they believe to be the long prophesized Hope of Humanity. Its up to Alex to protect the girl from the petty and selfish Greek gods of Mt. Olympus and establish her true identity.

In a desperate roll of the dice, Alex takes the girl to see Cassandra, the Oracle of Troy, who has been driven made by visions of the future to uncover the girl’s destiny.

Alexandra Blood, the heroine, was supposed to be emotionless (having seen so much death, she doesn’t want to feel anymore) yet there is a distinctive difference between someone who is suppressing emotions and someone who is merely claiming to suppress all emotions. Alex was the latter. For example, in one scene, where she was mad about something, she started yelling at one man, but then abruptly felt sympathetic for someone else and had tears in her eyes because of that.  Emotionless people don’t feel sympathetic and they certainly don’t get tears in their eyes.

The other character that utterly killed Knight’s Blood was Sonja, the “Hope for Humanity.” In the extreme opposite of Alex, she had very frequent mood swings and would throw temper tantrums that would make any 3 year old proud.  Take this scene for example: Alex and Sonja were sitting in a car, and Alex told Sonja to get out. Sonja refused, wanting to stay in the relative safety of the car and calls Alex a “crazy bitch.” Infuriated, Alex gets out of the car so she can drag Sonja out. But Sonja gets the smart idea to lock the doors and then has the audacity to smugly stick her tongue out at Alex. Alex somehow manages to shatter the window with a single punch, grabs Sonja’s tongue and threatens to cut it off.

The other reason why I disliked Knight’s Blood was that it was told in third person, mainly from Alex’s point of view. But every once in a while, a single solitary sentence, with someone else’s thoughts, would randomly pop up before it just as quickly went back to Alex’s POV. It happened so fast that I was left thinking, “Was I really just inside someone else’s mind?” It’s never a good idea to confuse readers like that. And it’s seriously annoying.

As I said before, Knight’s Blood could have been good. Unfortunately, the characters themselves ruined it for me. If you can ignore the characters, and focus on the plot, then you might enjoy it more than I did.

About Casey 203 Articles
Casey is the founder of Heart Full of Ink, Director at Reading Until Dawn Con, and a full time cheese addict. She's been ranting and reviewing for Literary Escapism since 2010, and is part of the trio #3Bloggers1Series podcast. When she's not reading, looking for new books, or stalking authors online (waiting for more books), she can be found binge watching Netflix. But really, her life is all about DEM BOOKS!