Book Review: The Knights of Rosande by Lydia Rood

 

 Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De ridders van Rosande.

New book review! Spoilers ahead!

Jorinde is a lady with a dissatisfying home life who sees all of her older brothers go one by one throughout the years as they become knights. After her favorite brother also vanishes, she decides to go on quest to seek him and the others out to bring them home. However, early on in her quest her father, the lord of Rosande, discovers her mission and is enraged, making her take a vow of silence for a year and forcing her to work as a maid at the local inn. However, despite this, Jorinde is still determined to find out what happened to her brothers.

With a cover like that and a synopsis on the back that implies the book will be about Jorinde's journey to find her brothers, the final outcome of the book sure was a disappointment for me. Instead of the book being about that, it's mostly just her keeping quiet (which is fine) and hanging out at the inn doing her chores. She does go out eventually and even while she's at the inn she does everything in her might to find out more information about her brothers, but it was just honestly kind of lame. Where is the action and adventure a premise and cover like this promises?

The characters. I didn't care about them. Genuinely, I liked Jorinde. Despite being quiet for most of the book she had a real determined and quick-thinking personality to her. But outside of her I thought most characters were either uninteresting or just unlikable. I didn't care about her brothers as characters so I didn't care to see her save them. And while I do like Jorinde's character, she wasn't well-written enough for me to care for her quest just because of her.

I was honestly mostly just bored while reading this book. It was a bit long, the amount of time spent at the inn wasn't for me and I didn't care about the political conflicts going on. The book made for a nice time-killer on the train to and from my work but nothing more than that. I suppose people who are enthusiastic for medieval fiction might get something out of it but it wasn't for me. Too much rampant strict christianity, misogyny and incest. 

Rating: 3/5