Booklog 60/2025: Peter McLean: Priest of Bones – War for the Rose Throne #1 – Audiobook

Audiobook narrated by David Morley Hale.
This was a revisit for me. I read the Kindle Version in February 2023, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but was tempted to the audiobook by the quality of the narrator. David Morley Hale does a marvellous job, voicing Thomas Piety as a gut-rough northerner. Piety returns to Ellinburg from a horrendous war, bringing back his surviving soldiers (including his second, Bloody Anne, and his war-damaged brother, Jochan) to take back his ‘streets’ and his businesses (brothels, gambling dens, taverns and protection rackets) only to find they’ve been taken over and his aunt (who was caretaking) has fled to a convent. Thomas has to take over his territory again, brutal blow by brutal blow. But it seems as though the threat of war is not over. There’s a fearsome Queen’s Man in town who can make life very uncomfortable, and short for him. When he’s informed that foreign infiltrators are responsible for the takeover, he’s pushed to do something about it lest they invade his city. His watchword is the right man for the job, and it seems as though Thomas is the right man to oust the foreigners, helped by the Queen’s Man (who happens to be a woman – very attractive, but lethal). This is a high body-count book, full of conflict and peril, but it also shows the effects of violence on men’s souls. Thomas is a great character, very human despite his criminality. My original review is on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37884491-priest-of-bones

Booklog 61/2025: Simon Scarrow: The Eagle in the Sand – Eagles of the Empire #7 – Audiobook

Audiobook narrated by Russell Boulter.

I jumped into this series at number #7, but didn’t have any problem getting into the characters despite not having any idea of what happened in books #1 - #6. It’s AD 46 and Roman centurions Cato and Macro have been posted to Judea to investigate Longinus, Roman governor of Syria, and to try to mitigate the effects of Roman oppression in a hearts and minds operation. Yeah, right! Religious figures are revolting (literally), and after Rome crucified the last charismatic Judean leader, Jehoshua, the whole place is a revolt waiting to happen, stirred up by local tribesman, Bannus. Add to that opportunistic Parthians eager to fight Rome and Macro and Cato have an almost impossible task. Macro is the seasoned centurion, happy to charge in regardless. Cato, his junior, but slightly more upper class, is a clever thinker. Together they make a good pair when the fort they’ve been assigned to is full of corruption. This is read quite well, if a little ponderous, by Russell Boulter, but he has a strange pronunciation of the letter A, as in last. He doesn’t have the short northern A, so it doesn’t rhyme with ass. Neither does he elongate the A-sound to rhyme with arse, but somehow manages to rhyme it with air, so last sounds like lairst. I can only think it a deliberate choice, but it kept pulling me out of the story at first, though by the time I reached the end I’d almost stopped noticing. The blurb says for fans of Bernard Cornwall, and I would also say for fans of Lindsey Davis’ Falco – though without the lightness of touch.

Booklog 62/2025: Iain McLaughlin: Ghost Ship – Blake’s Seven Audio Adventures #10

An original cast recording of a single episode length story in which the rest of the crew go in search of Dayna and Vila is left alone on board the liberator while ghostly figures stalk the corridors and get inside his head. Revenants? Demons? His alcohol-fuelled imagination? None of the above, but there is an answer. Paul Darrow (Kerr Avon), Michael Keating (Vila Restal) have very recognisably familiar voices, the others slightly less so. Published in 2015.