Unfortunately this one wasn't for me, I didn't get along with the humour but can totally see how it would work for others and be a great read.

Unfortunately I did not manage to read this book at the time; and it is no longer a book I'd be interested in reading. Many thanks to the publisher for approving my request, and my apologies for being unable to provide a full review.

In this book, we follow Chel, who finds himself unexpectedly sworn to protect Prince Tarfel and escort him across the country.

This book was really fun. I loved reading about The Black Hawks Company and all the craziness. The humor was really well-done and, at a certain point, I found myself missing their dynamic. I saw it being compared to The Kings of the Wyld and I can understand why. If you liked that one, you’ll like The Black Hawks, for sure.

The story was quest-based, the whole book revolves around Chel’s oath and mission. I can see how some people can view the plot as simple and too-linear but I think that it suited the world pretty well and allowed the reader to focus on the connections and interactions within The Black Hawks Company.

All in all, it was a fun book and I can’t wait to read the sequel.

This is a very accomplished debut novel with a strong sense of humour and morally grey characters. The plot is fun and engaging with just the right amount of chaos.

Book one of the two-part Articles of Faith series, David Wragg’s action packed and foul-mouthed The Black Hawks gleefully tramples over genre norms to deliver a fun new perspective on the fantasy quest story. Vedren Chel is neither heroic nor especially capable, and he would much rather be back home than in Denirnas, fetching and carrying for his step-uncle. When the city is attacked, however, he finds himself in the accidental service of the young, somewhat pitiful Prince Tarfel, and in the disreputable company of a band of mercenaries calling themselves the Black Hawks. If he can keep Tarfel alive long enough to deliver him safely into the hands of the mercenaries’ suspiciously vague employers, Chel might just be able to go home, but in order to do that he has to evade vengeful agents of the church and survive wolves, cannibals and all manner of other dangers.

It reads like a classic fantasy novel, full of action and excitement as the plucky hero sets off on a vital quest accompanied by a ragtag band of brave adventurers. Except Chel doesn’t have a choice in what he’s doing (and would definitely choose otherwise if he could), his companions, while undoubtedly handy in a fight, are about as dysfunctional a group of lowlifes as you could imagine, and the quest turns out to not be quite what he expected. Chel himself is frequently surly and stubborn, with an alarming tendency to unwisely stand his ground that regularly gets him into trouble – although the same stubbornness does gradually earn him a little respect from his fellows. Tarfel is morose and a bit pathetic, and while Chel feels a bit sorry for him the mercenaries give him short shrift. The Black Hawks themselves, however, steal the show with a consistently entertaining dynamic between the six-strong group of foul-mouthed and dubiously trustworthy reprobates [no spoilers – I’ll leave you to get to know each character when you meet them in the book].

Wragg sets out his stall early on with some eye-wateringly (and imaginatively) coarse language and a pacy, action-packed opening that throws the reader straight into the thick of things. There’s very little exposition provided so it’s a bit tricky at times to pick up the details of this world, its history and Chel’s backstory – there’s a sense that the world building has all been thought through, it’s just only coming through to the reader in small doses. If it’s a touch under-explained in places (and some readers will love that, of course) there’s certainly enough context to keep the plot moving and allow plenty of time for frantic, exciting action scenes shot through with obscenities and frequent explosions of extreme violence. As a largely helpless protagonist, at times Chel feels a little bit passive, but over time he grows into the story and his role within the group, and as the book progresses the world and the characters’ places within it all comes into much clearer focus.

What stands out right throughout the book, however, is an overriding sense of fun. There’s constant forward motion as the characters lurch from one almost-disaster to the next, and every step of the way the sharp and snappy (and often filthy) dialogue helps bring Chel, Tarfel and the Black Hawks to sarcastic, offensive (in a good way) life. None of these characters are noble or heroic, and nor are they really what you’d call anti-heroes, but they’re believable and entertaining, and it’s hard not to care about them (apart from Spider…nothing good will come from a character called Spider). All that said, however coarse and funny this book may be, it absolutely isn’t a comedy. Humour aside, it’s a tale of underdogs scrapping to survive, railing against the undeserved power of a manipulative church and the corrupt, power-hungry men and women who flock to its banner. It just happens to be full of characters who are genuinely fun to read about, and written by an author clearly enjoying himself using and subverting classic fantasy tropes.

The language might put some readers off, but as long as you don’t mind the copious swearing (or, like me, you find it genuinely amusing) and you go into this aware that it’s darkly funny but not what you would call ‘humorous fantasy’, there’s an awful lot to enjoy. It’s definitely the first part of a wider story, leaving a fair few things hanging for the second part to conclude, but by the time the dust has settled the world building has come nicely into focus and the characters are so well realised that the prospect of more – in the shape of The Righteous – is tantalising. If you’re a fantasy fan and you’re on the lookout for an alternative to the grimdark stylings that are prevalent in a lot of modern fantasy, The Black Hawks – and the Articles of Faith series as a whole – is well worth investigating!

The first novel in the Articles of Faith fantasy series.
THE BLACK HAWKS manages to walk the line between a number of popular fantasy "styles" at the moment. It's dark and quite gritty, but also funny. One might compare it to Nicholas Eames's series, but I think Wragg's is better. Great characters, an engaging plot, and some great action.

If you're a fan of authors such as Joe Abercrombie, Peter V. Brett, Anna Smith Spark, and Brent Weeks, then you should definitely give this novel a try. Really looking forward to reading the next one.

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with this book. It isn’t that it was bad, but it felt like there could have been done more to make it a better book. I did enjoy reading this book, but I felt that I could have enjoyed it more if the author had more world building in the book and more character depth. While I was reading the book I couldn’t picture where we were in the world. So this book would have benefited from more world building and maybe a map at the beginning of the book, so you could follow along. With that I also thought that the characters felt very 2D and at the end of the book we didn’t really get to know them.

The cover artist did a great job and the plot sounds really interesting, however, I felt this novel tried to hard to set itself apart from the general clutter of novels in the same genre. Since Mark Lawrence and Joe Abercrombie became such huge successes with their unique ways of writing and their love-to-hate-them characters, I personally feel every author since is trying their own hand at this and forgetting to write a story in their own style with their own voice.

I'm not saying this is what Wragg does, but there are some inclinations that remind me too much of Lawrence and Abercrombie to see past them and focus on The Black Hawks.

-DNF @34% -

Vedren Chel is bound by an oath to his step-uncle and finds himself doing mundane tasks and dreaming of home.
Then the kingdom is invaded and Chel has the chance to get out of his oath, but first he must deliver the prince to safety.
Chel and the prince find themselves with the Black Hawks, a group of mercenaries.
But can Chel trust them?

Going into The Black Hawks I was looking forward to reading it as it sounded like a good read with lots of action. However, it ended up not being for me.
Chel was an OK protagonist, but I didn't feel that I connected with him.
None of the characters really stood out for me.
The plot was OK but I really struggled with the writing style and to feel invested in the storyline.
It got to the point where I was forcing myself to continue and so I decided to DNF.
I might try to read this again at some point in the future.

Unfortunately, this wasn't for me.

This book sounded exactly like something I would love, with a rag-tag group of mercenaries and a protagonist thrown into it against his will. While I enjoyed the humour, and the characters of the other mercenaries, I wasn't a huge fan of the main character, Chel, and the pacing felt off for me. However it did show a lot of promise, so I gave it 3 stars.

This is a very gritty, intense adult fantasy, with a lot of action. The story mainly follows Chel, a bored nobel who chances upon an adventure he never asked for when the Norts attack the city and he finds himself tasked with getting prince Tarfal safely to his brother.

This book took me a little while to get into, but the characters were outlandishly brilliant. The Black Hawks are a group of mercinaries, assasins, and criminals and their interactions were funny and surprising. When Chel teams up with them (sort of inadvertently), the story really kicks into another gear. The group politics and camaraderie was enjoyably realistic, and at times I couldn't tell whether they were going to save each other's lives of leave each other for dead.

The action was fast-paced and frequent, and the twists and turns of the story kept me guessing the entire time. At times, I found the treatment of the women characters questionable and the dialogue was sometimes hard to follow, but the intriguing plot kept me reading.

DNF'd at 21%

Truthfully, I feel mislead by the marketing and blurb and therefore The Black Hawks is not what I expected it to be. The blurb promises quick paced and funny adventure with a merry crew of mercenaries, but so far the story hasn't been funny and the mercs have barely shown up (and they don't seem merry), and overall the beginning is so slow. There's a lot of religious talk and seems like the religious orders are going to have a relatively big role in this generic world, and I'm not one for such stories. Main character, Chel, is also pretty flat and so generic - it's difficult to remember anything concerning him.

In short, I am not enjoying the story and not engaged with it at all. I fear the story is going to a direction I rather not read about, and it just isn't what I expected it to be based on the blurb and marketing.

Received from Harper Collins UK and Netgalley for honest read and review.
A wonderful story that had me hooked from the beginning. Well written and with enough humour in it to keep me going throughout.
Main character of Chelsea is brilliant and I cannot wait to read some more of these adventures.
Really good read and highly recommended.

Fantasy in the style of GoT and LoTR, that kind of medieval time period. No dragons or magic though, just the story of a group of medieval mercenaries drawn into conflict between church and state.
Interesting developments along the themes of loyalty, and conflicts of loyalty between different groups. Church, Family, Group, State etc.
Rollicking good story, plenty of action, heroism and brotherhood in arms. Dialogue is first class, all the character displaying a great line in acerbic wit.
Romping, woke adventure, the women are every bit as foul mouthed and violent as the men.

Unfortunately, I can’t review it because it wouldn’t let me download this to my kindle. Very sad! I will be picking up a finished copy to try!

I loved that this book wastes no time to get into the action. There's little worldbuilding in the start, which is fine, but there were some places where it could have helped a bit. There were times I laughed out loud at scenes, and at the way these mercs banter & roast each other without mercy. I disliked Tarfel because the man would not. Stop. Whining.

I did like the characters in this book, as they all felt like individuals, were each interesting in their own way, and I enjoy morally gray characters. I also liked how the pain of their injuries were mentioned consistently, rather than 'ow that stab hurt. anyways off to never mention it again on our 5-day journey!' It gave it a bit of realism without taking the fantasy out of it. The protagonist didn't have much agency, which I felt took away from the story a bit.

Unfortunately, for most of this book I felt underwhelmed and often a bit bored. But the ending made me want to read the sequel!

’ve finally finished The Black Hawks and broken what has been a particularly brutal reading slump! It’s been so long and the book has been out a good while, but I still have to say the wonderful folks at HarperVoyager gave me this as a NetGalley ARC for an honest review.

Always a sucker for an aesthetic it was the cover of this one that really caught my eye, then I discovered it was a fantasy with a ragtag group of scoundrels and my mouse couldn’t click the request button fast enough. The book itself is a bit of a runaway train, it goes at an extremely fast pace, with our colourful cast hitting roadblocks and smashing through them with enthusiasm.

The book is split into four parts and annoyingly part one is the hardest to get into; lets just say Chel and the Prince could not hold my attention alone, but once the book gets going it goes from strength to strength. The story itself is dark and gritty but Wragg knows when to lift the mood with well timed humour. This book has some of the best insults I’ve ever read, and most of them made me audibly snort:

‘Thanks, you cloth-eared fuck stool’
‘My Pleasure, you reeking piss-wizard’

See they’re absolutely incredible. I only wish my insults were as colourful and creative as these bad boys.

The characters make what could have been a very dark novel into something rather fun. It’s Chels perspective that we follow throughout the book, and I rather enjoyed him as a protagonist once I got passed that first part. He’s just strong enough to be interesting, and not so overpowered that you know the end result of every battle; Chel feels like a normal man thrust into bad situations and I loved that about him. The Black Hawks themselves are morally grey, memorable, and cuss aficionados. They all feel like well-rounded characters, and each of them had a different thing that made them stand out; the cast of characters, although large, were all so well developed.

In all honesty, this book is just plain fun! I had a wonderful time reading it and I cannot wait to see what the sequel holds.

Recommend: If you’re looking for a fast-paced fantasy with some gritty mercenary action then this one’s for you.

Chel is just your average dude. And then he accidentally breaks his oath and swears a new one to a prince. Now he has to bring said prince across the country. Except, both he and the prince are utterly clueless what they're up against. On the way, they join forces with the eponymous Black Hawk Company, a wonderfully scrappy band of mercenary rogues, shenanigans and political mess ensuing. An entertaining debut featuring an excellent cast of characters full of flaws and personal motivations, Dave Wragg has delivered an intriguing beginning to his series. Thrilling and humorous, The Black Hawks is one to distract you from the worries of 2020.

This is a fun, fast read. I loved it! This band of misfits has a special place in my heart. So many great characters to love, but I think Lemon is my favorite. She is hilarious. I highly recommend this to all fantasy fans. I am ready for more!

Thanks to Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Not really sure what you call this genre. It's not quite fantasy, ensemble comedy adventure story?

Anyhoo, this is one of those books. You know the kind...ok I'm going to be blunt and say it's basically a not so good Kings of the Wyld.

I spent the first 20% of this book wondering wtf was happening and wondered if it was the second book in a series. Nope, it isn't.

I just felt like this book tried way too hard. The humour didn't translate for me at all and I found the constant swearing really tiresome. I'm not against bad language at all but it reminded me of some of the teens at my school who aren't capable of uttering a single sentence without swearing.

The dialogue just read really strange to me and the main character wasn't likeable or interesting. Considering the potential of the plot (mercenaries, assassins, war) it just managed to be a bit boring.

Not for me I'm afraid which is a shame as I'd hoped it would be really fun to read.