The Archcrusade: Tome One (The Archcrusade Series) by K. M. Hogenson – Review by Jennifer Gordon

The Archcrusade: Tome One: The Archspawn – Pilgrimage & Prophecies by K.M. Hogenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is an epic fantasy adventure with an exciting storyline and it’s a huge book with many pages. This is a very long read and not an overly easy one, mainly due to the high number of characters in the story all of whom have unusual names, making it hard to keep track of them all. The world building however is amazing and the fantasy world created by the author came vividly to life, which made me feel more immersed in the story. The main character and the one who I found it the easiest to feel engaged with is Basil, a sheltered healing mage’s apprentice. Basil sets out to march with the crusade called for by ‘The High King of Coserai’, to defend the holy land following a raid by bloodthirsty monsters at the first archangels birthplace. However, Basil has another reason for going, to accomplish his Low King’s agenda to find the oracle and gain insight into the realms fate.
Basil faces many dangers and threats on his journey, including from criminals and demons paid to kill crusade members. Along the way Basil begins to discover the truth about his divine destiny. Told from many different character POV’s I did find the narrative a bit difficult to understand at times. I also personally found there was an overload of information in each chapter which overwhelmed me rather. I must admit I did find myself flicking through some pages just to get to the end of the book. I found the book was just too long with too many characters and the multiple POV’s didn’t work for me. However, the storyline is intriguing, the characters are well defined and the setting comes to life, and as I am not an avid fantasy lover maybe I just ‘didn’t get it’! I did love Basil though and was left wondering what the author has in mind for him in the next book in this series.

View all my reviews