Seven Deadly Swords by Peter Sutton

I would like to thank the author for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Kristell Ink

Published – Out Now

Price - £9.99 paperback £4.51 Kindle eBook

For Every sin, a sword. For every sword, a curse. For every curse, a death.

Reymond joined the Crusades to free the Holy Land from the Saracens and win glory for himself. Instead with six others, he found himself bound under a sorcerer’s curse: the Seven Sins personified.

Doomed to eternal life and with the weight of the deaths he has caused dragging his soul into the torments of hell, Reymond must find his former brothers-in arms and defeat them. Riding across a thousand years of history, the road from Wrath to Redemption will be deadly…

Let’s face it swords in fantasy are cool. I love an epic swordfight in a movie or a book and of course it George Lucas made them glow just to place them in a galaxy far far away. The attraction is perhaps that they appear more civilised than guns and it can be a wonderful piece of art watch two competitors fight. But let’s not varnish (ok polish) swords too much with praise – they are still designed to fight and kill. War often gets painted in gold as representing our finest hours, but I recall my grandad who fought in WW2 and was at Belsen never wanted to talk about his war time experiences and hated the leaders who put him into it. War scars people and often the cycle of violence we see in conflict can be never ending. This was why I liked the fine balance that Peter Sutton trod in Seven Deadly Swords giving us both a grim endless cycle of battles between immortals and yet reminding people in war all that glitters is not gold.

The story is set amongst multiple timelines. In 2012 we see a man named Reymond fight and then kill a priest taking his sword – they clearly have known each other for many years. Then nearly a thousand years earlier we meet a young man named Reymond in Avignon, France becomes entranced with the recently announced Crusades and decides to seek glory and serve God. He bonds with six members of the same company but also finds that war is hard, brutal and often the enemy is not actually a devil but just as human as you are. It’s more a battle for survival but as to why everyone is fighting seems unclear. As we find out Reymond has found a way to survive the centuries; but it involves swapping bodies with each death and wherever he meets another of his troupe they are forced to fight to the death. The cycle is never ending but Reymond thinks he has found a way to escape.

If I was looking for a way to describe this book, I would have to say I’m tempted to say imagine a grimdark version of Highlander. Reymond in his early years is very much the young farm boy that many fantasy stories love to use but with each day in the Crusades he loses his innocence and in the modern era he is pretty much just a driven remorseless warrior – you feel the endless fighting has taken his humanity away and he is more desperate rather than enjoying the constant fights. As we meet each of the other immortals, we see they are getting damaged by the endless life they are all losing themselves and in their earlier lives all seemed more honourable. The mystery that the book slowly unfurls is how the soldiers found themselves in this situation and the true horror of the curse.

I think the one thing I’d have loved more of is the human exploration of the character’s immortality and the impact on their lives. Its tricky to do this as each immortal is compelled to attack each other upon meeting. There are fascinating additions though Reymond has a fascinating companion in the form of the quirky mercenary Fisher and Mari a woman who has a personal investment in the lifting of the curse but I would have liked a bit more interaction as these two explore who Reymond now is and where he thinks he is going.

Overall though a well-paced bloody race through a thousand years for redemption. Violence is both exhilarating and horrifying and we see that war ultimately only makes things worse for the world and those who fight in it. If you enjoy your grimdark action, then this is right up your street!