Two Reviews

I was pleased this morning to see two nice reviews of The Poisoned Cup on Amazon.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Poisoned Cup 8 Feb 2014

By Elspeth G. Perkin

Amazon Verified Purchase
Who can be truly called a Villain or a Hero? Is history biased toward certain lasting legacies of historic figures? The Poisoned Cup by Edward Lanyon presents the reader with these questions and more as the novel weaves a rich tapestry of political intrigue with a fictional seasoned knight as the reader's guide to the madness that ensued from the death of one king and the debatable obligations of another. The reader will be confronted by the raw brutality of the war between England and Scotland during the late 13th century and close with the practices enforced as punishment in the early 14th century. While some characters are based from history and others are only fictional, the main are essentially fleshed out into complex individuals that are presented as battling for diverse motives. The writing is truly impressive and readers who are familiar with the brilliant works of Maurice Druon may find similar writing style with the use of dialogue, delivery of historical events and overall pacing of the story.
In the end, The Poisoned Cup was an absolute gem of a find and I was stunned to discover that this was a debut novel. Although the portrayals of certain historical based characters seemed a little skewed and there were a few believability issues that appeared but mostly never were addressed, The Poisoned Cup was still an entertaining look at the deadly dance between England and Scotland during the late 13th and early 14th centuries and is sure to draw further interest from the reader to explore the history during that turmoil filled time and its leading opponents.

5.0 out of 5 stars A rollicking good yarn 7 Feb 2014

By Amazon Customer
I bought this one last night and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. It reads like a Bernard Cornwell novel. The key character is an aging English knight working for King Edward the First to try to bring about a lasting peace with Scotland. He is thwarted when the Scottish king Alexander is killed in an accident. One of the secondary characters is William Wallace but this is a very different Wallace to the one you see in the Braveheart film. He is far from being a hero. According to Lanyon’s notes, this is the more accurate version of him. I’m no historian so I can’t judge, but I do know that those were brutal times. With that in mind, the book’s portrayal comes across as more credible than the film image. That aside, this is a just a rollicking good historical tale with knights, battles and a beautiful young maiden. A great first novel from this new writer