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Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Jester by James Patterson & Andrew Gross

Genre: Historical Fiction

Hugh de Luc was raised by a traveling band of entertainers called goliards.  In one village he meets the love of his life.  He marries and settles down with Sophie.  Then one day an army of crusaders passes through the town.  The leader promises freedom for all those who join his crusade.

To win freedom for himself and Sophie, Hugh joins the crusaders.  Two years later, he becomes disillusioned with the violence and misery of the crusades.  Hugh returns home with a few meager possessions to find that his home has been destroyed, Sophie has been taken, and the son he didn't know he had has been murdered by  knights of the local lord.

Hugh vows to find Sophie and avenge his son.

In the process he becomes a court jester.  He also learns that he supposedly possesses a valuable relic.  (Not the Holy Grail - whew!) But he does not know what it could be.

As the tale unfolds the authors portray interesting characters: commoners, knights and nobles.  Hugh undergoes incredible sorrow and fantastic joy.  And the reader experiences a nice entertaining story.

This book was a nice easy read.  The authors' style was to use numerous short chapters.  Most chapters were only three or four pages long.  For me, it made the book easy to read because I like to finish chapters when I put my books down.


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