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Review: The Scottish Boy, Alex de Campi
Dec. 29th, 2020 12:16 pmThesis Statement: I was very sad when this book was over.
All joking aside, this was one of my favorite reads of the year, and I have read a metric shit tonne of books this year. I'll start off with what this book is not: (a) historically accurate, (b) packed to the gills with female characters, and (c) terribly good at acknowledging that the British need to kill other people and take their home lands wasn't really a GOOD practice.
Given that, it is my recommendation that if you read this, you read it more as like fantasy!England. Because if you stop to think about it too hard, it is a little disturbing otherwise.
For pure romance, though? *chef's kiss*
Basically, we've got Harry, our wet-behind-the-ears, just-promoted-from-Squire Knight. By dint of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it), he is part of a band of British knights who goes into Scotland after they've most recently won a decisive battle and retrieves a guy. Not for nothing, said guy is retrieved by said knights slaughtering all of the unarmed and on-the-edge of starvation people who are living in the keep with the guy. This is Not What Harry Signed Up For.
For Reasons, head of this knight expedition wants guy, whose name is Iain, alive. He also doesn't want to deal with him, so Head Knight pawns Iain off on Harry with the blackmail that Head Knight has bought up all the debt on Harry's struggling estate and will foreclose on him if he doesn't keep Iain both alive and under control.
Narratively, we don't learn who Iain is or why he's important until considerably later, although, honestly, I was pretty certain I knew from early on. Harry's...a little dense politically. Which is not to say he's dumb. In the areas that Harry needs to be skilled in, say, running a small estate, being a knight, Harry's pretty smart. And he can be people smart. But politics have never mattered to Harry and he's kept himself largely blind to them. (In fairness, even with the dickish behavior toward the rest of what would later become the UK, at this point, England is kind of a backwater. If Iain hadn't come into Harry's life, there would have been very little reason for him to care about politics, let alone international ones.)
But Iain is the product of a whole epic morass of court politics and betrayal and terribleness and when we meet him, he's extremely good at being who Harry wants him to be right up until he can wiggle free and effect an escape. At one point, this actually ends in the death of Harry's horse (making it one of TWO romances I've read this year where the horse dies and like, STAHP). Understandably, Harry is 300% done with Iain.
Then, of course, Iain gets himself into real trouble and some of it is accidentally Harry's fault and it takes a moment, but they come to an accord. Harry has some Religious Angst, Iain lays down the law with "I can't be your piece when you think Jesus isn't looking, I was born this way, bitch," and Harry realizes, after a bit, that he has to shit or get off the pot. I'll let you guess which one he chooses.
Whereon from which, it's kind of bardic? In the sense that there's a lot of separation, and them realizing that they just don't function as well without each other, and there's war and VENGEANCE and it's very sweeping.
I know people are very split on epilogues. I have no strong feelings on them one way or another. I think in some books they're fantastic. In others, I could do without. I wish this book had a little more of an epilogue. It's not that the ending is abrupt, it isn't. It's just that we've gone through a LOT to get that HEA, and we could stand to wallow in it for a bit more.
All in all though? A++ entertainment.
All joking aside, this was one of my favorite reads of the year, and I have read a metric shit tonne of books this year. I'll start off with what this book is not: (a) historically accurate, (b) packed to the gills with female characters, and (c) terribly good at acknowledging that the British need to kill other people and take their home lands wasn't really a GOOD practice.
Given that, it is my recommendation that if you read this, you read it more as like fantasy!England. Because if you stop to think about it too hard, it is a little disturbing otherwise.
For pure romance, though? *chef's kiss*
Basically, we've got Harry, our wet-behind-the-ears, just-promoted-from-Squire Knight. By dint of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or vice versa, depending on how you look at it), he is part of a band of British knights who goes into Scotland after they've most recently won a decisive battle and retrieves a guy. Not for nothing, said guy is retrieved by said knights slaughtering all of the unarmed and on-the-edge of starvation people who are living in the keep with the guy. This is Not What Harry Signed Up For.
For Reasons, head of this knight expedition wants guy, whose name is Iain, alive. He also doesn't want to deal with him, so Head Knight pawns Iain off on Harry with the blackmail that Head Knight has bought up all the debt on Harry's struggling estate and will foreclose on him if he doesn't keep Iain both alive and under control.
Narratively, we don't learn who Iain is or why he's important until considerably later, although, honestly, I was pretty certain I knew from early on. Harry's...a little dense politically. Which is not to say he's dumb. In the areas that Harry needs to be skilled in, say, running a small estate, being a knight, Harry's pretty smart. And he can be people smart. But politics have never mattered to Harry and he's kept himself largely blind to them. (In fairness, even with the dickish behavior toward the rest of what would later become the UK, at this point, England is kind of a backwater. If Iain hadn't come into Harry's life, there would have been very little reason for him to care about politics, let alone international ones.)
But Iain is the product of a whole epic morass of court politics and betrayal and terribleness and when we meet him, he's extremely good at being who Harry wants him to be right up until he can wiggle free and effect an escape. At one point, this actually ends in the death of Harry's horse (making it one of TWO romances I've read this year where the horse dies and like, STAHP). Understandably, Harry is 300% done with Iain.
Then, of course, Iain gets himself into real trouble and some of it is accidentally Harry's fault and it takes a moment, but they come to an accord. Harry has some Religious Angst, Iain lays down the law with "I can't be your piece when you think Jesus isn't looking, I was born this way, bitch," and Harry realizes, after a bit, that he has to shit or get off the pot. I'll let you guess which one he chooses.
Whereon from which, it's kind of bardic? In the sense that there's a lot of separation, and them realizing that they just don't function as well without each other, and there's war and VENGEANCE and it's very sweeping.
I know people are very split on epilogues. I have no strong feelings on them one way or another. I think in some books they're fantastic. In others, I could do without. I wish this book had a little more of an epilogue. It's not that the ending is abrupt, it isn't. It's just that we've gone through a LOT to get that HEA, and we could stand to wallow in it for a bit more.
All in all though? A++ entertainment.
