Sword for Hire

Border Knight, Book 1

By: Griff Hosker

Narrated by: Marston York

Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

From the ashes of Arsuf rises Sir Thomas, blood of the Warlord.

When his father is killed at Arsuf protecting King Richard, Thomas is knighted. His hopes of inheriting his family's manor are dashed when Prince John takes power in his brother's absence. With a handful of men, Sir Thomas is forced to travel to Sweden where he joins the Jarl Birger Brosa fighting the Estonians, Karelians and Slavs. Fighting in the harsh environment of a Baltic winter makes Sir Thomas and his men stronger. There he learns of further treachery and dishonour among Bishops, Kings and Princes who value thrones more than men.

©2017 Griff Hosker (P)2017 W F Howes

Good book

Had a few battle scenes whilst listening in work hairs on the back of my neck stood up, everything you could want from a Midevil Nights rise in a book.

Excellent Historical Fiction!

Excellent historical novel & 1st book of what promises to be a great series! Very entertaining storyline, good character development, set in a very interesting time. If you’re a fan of Bernard Cornwell (and I am), this book is in your strike zone.

Great book

Interesting from the start! Love the adventure Thomas is on in this fantastic and well thought out book!

Hosker illustrates these stories well

Very entertaining and worth the time. On to book 2 in the series now.
As always the Marston York is excellent.

Sword for hire is the continuation of border knight series

From the crusades to the
The fight against King John and tyranny. This journey goes far into the medieval adventures.

A rollicking ride through the 13th century

I have just concluded the 10th book, as far as the audiobooks go, as yet. Marston York’s voice talent adds a great deal. Challenging for me was the relentlessly English point of view. A family of knights and warriors is so ill-used by the Crown, you can’t help but wonder at their loyalty. The confluence between the royals and the Church is taken for granted but can seem absurd by modern standards. And as ever, the obsession with bloodlines can get old. In the British Isles, Scots and Welsh, with whom I would normally identify, are mown down by the English with no regard to their point of view.

The depiction of the Crusades, however, was fascinating. European Crusaders often brought their squabbles from home to the Holy Land and could not always trust each other, a riveting dynamic. Templars have gone rogue and loot freely, above the law. Crusaders fear the Seljuk Turks with their mounted archers, yet make common cause with them as the Mongol Horde threatens from the East. And the “Holy Wars” are revealed as quite unholy, motivated by the Vatican’s unquenchable thirst for riches.

I enjoyed the military strategies, weapons, armor and castle-building. A lot of great research went into these books. Moments of predictability were outweighed by good characters and dialogue.

Fathers names

Well let’s me just say the only thing that I hated about this book was that no one cares about the warriors he always says his friends names and their fathers but you see we the listeners do not care about theirs fathers so stop saying their fathers names with there’s sons names