Blood of Ambrose by James Enge – Review

Blood of Ambrose by James Enge

John from Grasping for the Wind described the plot as “Lathmar’s capture, rescue, recapture and rescue again”, which correctly describes the gist of it, but there’s more to the story than just the adventures of the little King. “Blood of Ambrose” is an action-packed fantasy, which, despite seeming to revolve around the boy-king Lathmar, actually focuses more on Lathmar’s grown-up ‘assistants’ and his distant relatives: his ‘grandmother’ Ambrosia, her brother, the notorious Mordock, and his apprentice, who all fight Lathmar’s war in order to bring peace back to his kingdom. There is still a lot of focus on Lathmar’s adventures, though, which makes “Blood of Ambrose” a nice blend of YA and fantasy – the not-too-serious narrating tone prevents “Blood of Ambrose” to sound too bleak or ominous when regarding some of the graver events like the uprising of the ‘zombies’ and the painful past of the Ambrosii (i.e. Mordock and Ambrosia). At the same time, we get a pretty realistic picture of Lathmar as a boy: he hardly knows what the grown-ups are talking about half of the time, he has no special skills except for those which are more or less common in his family and his perception is, at times, rather naïve.

via Realms Of Speculative Fiction: James Enge – Blood of Ambrose (Book Review).