Bloodguard by Cecy Robson

Book Review

Adrian Fletcher

Bloodguard is a story of 2 protagonists. Firstly, a Gladiator fighting for his freedom, and the wealth that comes from winning in the arena enough to become a Bloodguard. Wealth he plans to use to help his family in a remote part of the realm. Second is a princess, soon to come of age, and, provided she marries a noble, become queen. Both deal with the machinations of the regent and his unstable son, whose murky motivations are one of the core mysteries of the book. 

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that the two meet and fall in love while they fight for what they want. In the process, many secrets about the city-state of Arrow and the continent of Old Erth are revealed. 

I found Bloodguard an engaging and fun read. While it has romance as a central plot, I wouldn’t classify it as Romantasy. I’m not a romantasy reader, but I didn’t feel that the plot existed to serve the romance. There’s plenty going on, and indeed the romance adds depth to some of the twists and turns.

Everything moves along at a good pace, and there is plenty of action; there’s certainly no storybook happy ending here. Arrow is a city steeped in brutality, and the book doesn’t shy away from that. The twists of the plot are well handled; not all the characters are who we think they are at the start, but the various revelations are satisfying and feel earned, and the heroes certainly don’t have things handed to them on a platter.

Of the two leads, Maeve, the princess, is the more compelling. The Gladiator, Leith, can occasionally skirt cliché (although some clichés attain that status for a reason). Maeve is a sympathetic and nuanced character, who manages to be strong and feminine. The romance between the two is core to the book and therefore takes up a significant amount of the story, but none of it feels unnecessary in the context of the story. 

The book comes with a foreword warning of the graphic nature of some of the fighting scenes. I didn’t find them particularly gruesome; there’s a realistic depiction of the toll gladiators pay but nothing excessive. Bloodguard does have a tendency to use modern slang that some readers may find breaks their immersion. I personally didn’t mind it, but if it’s a bugbear of yours, it’s worth at least trying to put it aside here. 

Overall, I really enjoyed Bloodguard. I read it on holiday and found it to be exactly what I was looking for. If you are looking for romantasy, I’d not recommend it, and if you have an irrational hatred of romance in your fantasy, then there’s probably a touch too much in Bloodguard for you. If both extremes are unhappy with the level of romance, though, it suggests a good balance. 

The prose are economical but engaging, and the battle scenes are well written and interesting. There’s also a fair number of well-imagined creatures. Some of the fantasy staples are present, but this is its own world inhabited by original creatures, some of which are very cool. Beneath the surface of the story, there’s a thoughtful allegory of the balance between so-called developed and developing nations. It adds depth to everything and makes the events of the book all the more terrifyingly plausible. 

All of the various plot points are wrapped up in a satisfying way, but with enough scope for further books to come. Like any good mystery, nobody gets quite the ending they expected, and the world is a very different place to where we were at the start.

This is the first book I’ve read by Cecy Robson, but it won’t be the last.