Book Review: Sir Quinlan and the Swords of Valor

 Sir Quinlan and the Swords of Valor by Chuck Black

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Multnomah Books (October 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1601421281
• ISBN-13: 978-1601421289

Product Description

 

Two friends face the Dark Knight’s deadliest scheme, but only one knight has the courage to overcome.
Sir Quinlan leaves his boyhood friend to serve the Prince, fighting a battle darker and more intense than any he’s ever known. The mysterious Sir Baylor recruits him into the ranks of an elite unit of knights known as the Swords of Valor, but when tragedy strikes and everyone blames Quinlan, the Swords of Valor disband, ending a legacy of heroic deeds.

Alone and despairing, Quinlan wanders the kingdom, fleeing his past. His providential encounter with Taras, a mysterious Silent Warrior and former trainer of Valor Knights, offers Quinlan a chance to redeem himself and learn the ways of the secret warriors.

The training is grueling, and just when Quinlan seems to have left his failures behind, he receives an impossible challenge from the Prince—one that will force him to face his past…and the mighty men who blame him for the tragedy that ruined them.

Can Quinlan reunite the Valor Knights in time to save the people from the Dark Knight’s evil plot to rule the Kingdom of Arrethtrae, or will the Valor Knights lose the most important battle of all?

 

About the Author

 

CHUCK BLACK, a former F-16 fi ghter pilot and tactical communications engineer, is the best-selling, award-winning author of the Kingdom series and the Knights of Arrethtrae series. He has received praise from parents across the country for his unique approach to telling biblical truths. His passion in life is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and to love his wife, Andrea, and their six children. He lives with his family in North Dakota.

My Thoughts:

I received the fifth book in the Knights of Arrethtrae series and finished reading it in 2 days. The young fiction, action packed novel written in allegory (conveying meaning other than literal) will hold your interest to the very end. Starting with a cool map of the Kingdom of Arrethtrae, including 24 chapters and 176 pages, plus discussion questions towards the back of the book and concluding with a great music score, "Ride of the Valiant" by Emily Elizabeth Black, you are holding in your hands a great adventure story filled with detailed battle scenes that are woven with Biblical truths, themes of morality and virtue and courage to follow truth. This is a great visual symbolic representation.

The story begins with the main character, Twitch (his given name is Quinlan) named for the twitch in his cheek when his nerves took over. When his parents died, he went to live with Tav (his very best friend) and his relatives. It seems the young lad was loved a great deal but never really respected much so he just followed along with Tav.

One day when Tav's uncle, Sir Baylor, comes to visit with important information about a mission for the Prince, Twitch feels a deep pull, perhaps a calling deep in his soul. He knows that he does not need to spend his life in the same place doing the same things all the time on a regular basis. He chooses to follow Sir Baylor.  
  
This is an unreasonable decision according to Tav and his relatives, so it’s with much difficulty that Twitch leaves them behind. When he does, he leaves behind the name Twitch and takes on his given name, Quinlan.
 
On the road with Sir Baylor, Quinlan becomes a member of Baylor’s elite group of soldiers though he’s untried in battle and not very  trained well enough for everyone’s tastes. When Baylor dies while on a mission, Quinlan accepts the man’s dying words, a trinket from him, and full responsibility for the death of his leader. This guilt weighs him down and drags at him from every angle until he’s unable to run away from it anymore.

A seemingly chance encounter with an amazing soldier named Taras leads Quinlan in a direction they never expected. He trains with Taras until one day, he takes over the leadership of the very team of soldiers from which he’d been running.
Whether tween or adult, you will want to read this exciting book and purchase the set for gift giving as well because Black's word crafting is over the top. You will be inspired and renewed with purpose and direction. In fact, Black says that he wrote his first book “to inspire his own children to read the Bible with renewed zeal”.

This book was provided for review by a Christian Publishing Company, WaterBrook Multnomah.
Sir Quinlan and the Swords of Valor (The Knights of Arrethtrae)
 


You can find out more about the series and the author on the Perfect Praise website. You can also purchase books from all the series, autographed copies, audio books, and even posters on the site. While you are there, let your kids see the Kingdom Fun page. They have beautiful art for desktop wallpaper, coloring pages and more. Soon they will have a Book Club, as well.

-- LadyD

“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C. S. Lewis