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Title: Sword-edged Blonde
Series: Eddie LaCrosse #1
Author: Alex Bledso
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Words: 82K
Series: Eddie LaCrosse #1
Author: Alex Bledso
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Words: 82K
Synopsis:
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Eddie LaCrosse is a
sword jockey, ie, a private detective. He's hired by his childhood
friend King Phil to prove that King Phil's wife didn't kill and then
eat their newborn baby.
Along the way Eddie
has to revisit his past and the reason he left the kingdom that Phil
now rules.
Eddie solves the
case, vindicates Phil's faith in his wife, takes down an evil dwarf
that has been alive over 500 years and finds the love of his life
prophesied about over 10 years ago.
My
Thoughts:
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While I was reading this I was fully into the story and enjoying it.
However, once the story ended and I began thinking about what I had
read, a couple of things came to the forefront for me.
First, I am reading more and more noir'ish Private Eye books. What's
more, I am generally liking them too. The Grimnoir, The Arcane
Casebook, Garrett PI, etc. The thing is, those all have elements of
the PI AND some other element (urban fantasy, fantasy). This, though,
only gave lip service to the fantasy element. The only fantastic
thing was that the wife of King Phillip used to be a goddess and that
the evil dwarf was actually just a human who had messed with the
goddess and been punished. That's it. No other races, no magic
spells, no grimoires, not even one magic sword. Not cool.
In conjunction with that was the deliberate anachronisms that the
author uses. Between names of people that you'd expect to meet on the
street today, to terms about weapons and businesses that fully belong
in the 21st century, Bledsoe kept pulling me out of the
story. It was obviously deliberate and meant as some sort of selling
point to distinguish the series but it did not work for me one tiny
bit.
I've been debating about whether to keep on with the series. Like I
said, while I was reading I was enjoying, but the moment I stopped,
well, it all came crashing down. And it wasn't like I was enjoying
the read on a Neal Asher level. This was a grocery store frozen
cheese pizza kind of enjoyment. With that, I don't think I'll be
continuing the series. There are so many other books I can try out
(and hopefully enjoy more) that it isn't worth continuing this “just
because I didn't hate it”.
★★★☆☆
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