Sweet & Salty Reviews - Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames

Beware of the spoilers!

The Dish

When I handed Bloody Rose to my gf in our local Waterstones and said, “this one”, her response was this.

“You know that’s going to be crap, right? It’s called ‘Bloody Rose’ and the tag line is ‘girls just want to have fun’.”

This filled me with immediate anxiety because gf has near-clairvoyant intuition. But it also provides Nicholas Eames with an immediate distinction because he actually proved gf wrong. Which isn’t even a distinction that I have.

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames is the bloody aftermath of a rock star’s tour bus colliding with a couchful of D&D LARPers. It’s a fantasy novel with modern values. Chivalry is dead and cursing is an art form. It is, by turns, loud, brash, obnoxious and hilarious, as well as heart-warming (or -breaking, depending on who’s dying).

Eames’ first book, Kings of the Wyld, is the direct prequel to this. I didn’t read Kings, but Bloody Rose can stand perfectly well on its own (ironic, for a number of reasons). At 510 pages, it’s a satisfyingly long read.

The Sauce

Set in the fictional world of Grandual, mercenaries and adventurers roam the land in ‘bands’, fighting monsters in arenas and taking quests from petty noblemen. Their exploits are far-fetched and immortalised in song by bards. Tam Hashford, the novel’s main character, becomes the bard of Fable, the world’s most famous (or infamous) band, led by the eponymous ‘Bloody Rose’.

The Sweet

Tam. Just Tam. She’s swell. The first chapter left me undecided, but by the time she’d killed a cyclops with a single arrow (it’s a whole thing), I had started to like her. She is sweet and sensitive, incisive and resourceful, brave and loyal and all manner of positive adjectives. The book is as much a coming-of-age tale for Tam as it is a chronicle of her bandmates.

Eames made a wise decision to make Tam the main character of the novel. A character like Bloody Rose is best viewed objectively, all their flaws and strengths on display. Tam, herself growing as a character, is able to peer into Rose’s heart throughout their exploits and paint a picture of a woman at war with herself and the world. This wouldn’t have been possible if the story had been told from Rose’s perspective.

The entire supporting cast offer something, even if it’s just a joke to ease the tension (which can ratchet on when you blink). The members of Fable are layered and interesting and often nicer than they first appear. Each character has an arc that is important to the overarching story. Even the mercenaries who don’t get sweeping arcs are still either a lot of fun or terribly sad depending on what happens to them. I’ll leave you to find out.

The finale is so ridiculously epic that the bards of Grandual would probably be hard-pressed to embellish it. Which raises an excellent point. The story is told from Tam’s perspective and, Tam being a bard, the events of the story may be dramatic hyperbole. Much like 300, the entire novel may be, in essence, unreliably narrated. But it’s pleasing to the palate.

The epilogue might have tried to tie up the story’s loose ends with too pretty a bow, but there is still a really touching scene involving Tam’s dad that made me very happy (which is good, since he’s one of only two fathers in the story who isn’t a total arsehole).

Also, I shipped Tam and Cura so hard I would have rioted if they hadn’t gotten together, so congratulations, Nicholas, for avoiding a riot.

The Salty

Eames’ world-building is tremendous. It has all the hallmarks of a classic fantasy world but uniquely-framed in a more modern mentality. And, just like in real life, the religion of Grandual turns out to be based on existing historical figures who weren’t quite as God-like as people are making out.

What’s so salty about that, I hear you ask somewhere out there presumably?

Most of these ‘historical figures’ died in living memory. So how can people be worshipping them like gods? If the Duke of Endland died - what? - twenty years ago, how could he be a major figure in a world-spanning religion already? Also, if his sacrifice to resurrect his mother wasn’t common knowledge, why is this a part of the religious motif surrounding the Autumn Son? It’s a brilliant example of how hyperbolic real events inspired religion; the same way bard songs inspire legends. It’s the dodgy timing that’s the issue.

Also, and this might sound strange, but I didn’t like Rose. Straight up, I didn’t care for her. She was a hypocrite and, in places, a bully. In a lot of places, she was the epitome of the old adage, ‘never meet your heroes’. Not liking Rose just made me like Tam more, however. Tam’s character arc supersedes Rose’s, and the girl learns from the woman’s example by seeing in her all the things she doesn’t want to be. It’s a powerful allegory for the current generation gap.

I also felt that not enough was made of the monster prejudice that was so prevalent in the first half of the book. When the villain is revealed, the monster issue is put to bed somewhat swiftly. I would have liked to see the matter of monsters dealt with in the story itself, rather than brushed aside and alluded to in the epilogue. Tam’s strong feelings on the problem made me feel invested and I wanted a stronger conclusion.

Also, the subplot involving Brune, the shaman, dead-ends quite unpleasantly. His tribe are basically left to fend for themselves without anyone to lead them and this is never actually settled by the time the book closes. This is unfortunate and it damaged my opinion of Brune (though Brune himself becomes a much less important character once his arc is complete).

There’s also the small issue of the villain. It’s mentioned at the start of the story that druins (basically, rabbit people) have prescience that enables them to see a moment into the future. This makes them impossible to kill with direct attacks, because they always dodge. One druin dies sacrificing themselves to save a loved one. This is fine. The villain is killed by a single arrow, albeit redirected off a sword blade. How could they not foresee that? It’s the same as a normal arrow, which they were dodging just fine.

As I see it, there are really only two ways to kill a druin. Either you put them in a position where every possible outcome is their death, e.g. an explosion, or you make them submit to it through mind games (convincing them it’s better that way, for instance). The villain should have died one of these ways.

Oh, and where were all the other bards? None of the other bands seemed to have one. I thought bards were really important. Just saying.

The Aftertaste

Bloody Rose was a lot of fun. It was funny and witty and poignant and thought-provoking and, in places, quite beautiful. Tam was a charming character and a joy to read, and Grandual is such an interesting location that I hope to visit again someday. I highly recommend this book to fans of fantasy or just plain good storytelling. For someone like me, who finds classic fantasy slow-paced, the break-neck speed, manic humour and wry dialogue of Bloody Rose was a welcome change.