Review: The Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell

Blurb:

With swashbuckling action that recalls Dumas's Three Musketeers, Sebastien de Castell has created a dynamic new fantasy series. In Traitor's Blade, a disgraced swordsman struggles to redeem himself by protecting a young girl caught in the web of a royal conspiracy.

The King is dead, the Greatcoats have been disbanded, and Falcio Val Mond and his fellow magistrates Kest and Brasti have been reduced to working as bodyguards for a nobleman who refuses to pay them. Things could be worse, of course. Their employer could be lying dead on the floor while they are forced to watch the killer plant evidence framing them for the murder. Oh wait, that's exactly what's happening.

Now a royal conspiracy is about to unfold in the most corrupt city in the world. A carefully orchestrated series of murders that began with the overthrow of an idealistic young king will end with the death of an orphaned girl and the ruin of everything that Falcio, Kest, and Brasti have fought for. But if the trio want to foil the conspiracy, save the girl, and reunite the Greatcoats, they'll have to do it with nothing but the tattered coats on their backs and the swords in their hands, because these days every noble is a tyrant, every knight is a thug, and the only thing you can really trust is a traitor's blade.

Review:

Sebastien de Castell’s writing style is very fluid, and downright bingeable, which allowed me to gobble this book up in a few brief sittings. He also has an excellent sense of humor which is expertly woven throughout the story, elevating my enjoyment of it even more.

The Greatcoats series has been on my radar for awhile now since one of my favorite booktubers has raved about it for ages. Naturally, I bought the whole series based on her recommendations, so I’ve meant to get to it well before now!

‘My name is Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats, and this was only the first of a great many bad days to come.’

I went into it quite blind, other than knowing the obvious: they’re Greatcoats and the king they served is dead. Other than that, I didn’t know much else. Over the years I’ve come to decide I prefer going into books mostly blind so my expectations are at a more realistic level. I’ll read cover blurbs, but that’s it. No reviews at all. But in the case of The Traitor’s Blade here, my expectations were already set quite high purely based on how much Jadeyraereads loved this series. Unfortunately for me, the book didn’t quite reach those expectations, or hit anywhere near them if I’m honest.

Now don’t get me wrong, this was still quite an enjoyable read. I just didn’t absolutely love it and it turned out nothing at all like what I’d anticipated. And the reason for this? Fun fact, my copy of the book has an entirely different blurb than the one listed above (which is from Amazon). So my copy was misleading in what I expected to happen. I browsed the rest of the series on Amazon and none of the blurbs match up to my copies. Apparently the American and the UK editions differ on their blurbs (I own the nice crisp white UK copies vs the sand colored US ones). So just an FYI for anyone else who might be as puzzled as I was to discover this lol.  

‘A hundred and forty-four Greatcoats riding across the land on horseback, swords drawn and coat-tails flying in the wind as we scream war-songs for bloody justice in the world – that would be a sight to see, wouldn’t it?’

The biggest thing that led to this book not reaching my expectations was I had assumed there would be a fair number of battles between the Greatcoats and the corrupt dukes, as well as more court intrigues. We did get lots of intrigue, but those battle scenes I was expecting/hoping for? Those weren’t as present as I would’ve liked. A good chunk of this book takes place in one city, with Falcio separated from his friends and relegated to a glorified babysitter for this young girl. I instantly missed the comedy and camaraderie of having the Greatcoats trio together. I did get invested in Falcio’s and Aline’s fight for survival in this blood thirsty city, and I really adored Aline and can’t wait to see more of her in the next book. But still, as stated above, my copy’s blurb led me to believe I’d be getting one kind of story, but what I got was an incredibly different one. 

I’m probably in the minority of people who cringed over this rather ridiculous thing, but the saints’s names. They have the most ridiculous sounding drawn out names followed by hyphenated titles (ie. ‘Saint Felsan-who-weighs-the-world,’ ‘Saint Laina-who-whores-for-Gods,’ ‘Saint Caveil-whose-blade-cuts-water’) that just feels like a ridiculous mouthful to swear over briefly when the names take longer to say that whatever it was you were swearing about. It’s petty, I’m aware, but this just bothered me for some reason whenever they were mentioned heh. I do applaud Mr.de Castell for his originality though ^_^ It just wasn’t my cup of tea.

‘Wouldn’t want to take anything from the nice men who were just doing their jobs trying to kill us…that wouldn’t just be dishonourable. It would be – oh my Gods and Saints – impolite.’

While our trio was together I was constantly highlighting lines while snickering over the banter between them. They’re just the best at ribbing each other, or just their sarcastic commentary on situations they found themselves in. And Falcio’s inner monologues, or insults they’d throw at the villains in the story, there were just so many excellent lines that I just want to remember forever <3 I always, always, always enjoy a book so much more if there’s humor in it, and The Traitor’s Blade is a veritable goldmine of it.

‘Nothing gets by you, Falcio, except for the bloody obvious.’

Now, while there is plenty of humor in The Traitor’s Blade, the story itself goes into some very dark themes, which Sebastien de Castell has expertly used the humor to soften the intensity of it. Particularly themes of torture, experimentation, and animal cruelty, though the focus is especially on torture. So do be aware of those things when diving in. When considering those themes it sounds like a dark book, but in actuality it doesn’t come across as dark and heavy as you might think, strange as that is to hear. And I think it all really comes down to de Castell’s easy writing and skillful humor.

This city that the story focused on really helped set up the heavy, smothering tones of corruption and greed for power from the dukes, and the atrocities they perpetrated on the common people under their rule. This corruption is the overlying theme over the story, and the reasoning behind the idealistic dead king’s creation of the Greatcoats themselves in the hope of sowing justice in this dark, bleak world.

“judge fair, ride fast, fight hard”

After the major reveals in the climax, I am more invested in continuing this series. I’m very curious to see how the Greatcoats continue to seek out and complete the final quest their king gave them before he died now that they know what they’re truly looking for.