I don't know why I didn't enjoy this more. When I actually got to read with no distractions I did enjoy it, but it only took the slightest of thing to pull me out of the story and it has therefore taken longer to read than it usually would. I know a bit about this period of history so I knew about the tensions between the father and the brothers and I knew that Henry (the son) died young of dysentry. I didn't find the main character (other than Richard) to be particularly compelling and I thought the character of Rufus was more fleshed out. There wasn't really all that much about Rufus' past which felt weird considering it was pretty much the motivation for what happened to Ferdia/Rufus and why he was a hostage.

I will read the next in the series because this series of books gets a really high Goodread's rating so maybe I just didn't gel with this book and I'll love the next. Don't get me wrong, I didn't think it was bad, just a bit average. I'll give it another chance.