Finn and his group of Templars, are being used by the Templar Grand Master who is trying to put his protégé on the throne of Jerusalem after the death of King Baldwin from leprosy. At the same time Saladin has created a massive group of armies to attack and drive off the last of the Latin Kingdoms in the Levant.

Finn and his friends are sent over the protected border between the armies to ascertain what Saladin’s resources are, and if they can find out what his strategy is to use his forces. When the other Templars and Crusaders hear of Finn’s orders, they all agree that it’s a suicide mission.
But, Finn has no choice but to follow his orders or resign from the Order. Finn is also having a crisis of faith, he’s not sure whether he believes in the need for the Crusades or whether he should remain celibate and unmarried.

He has become more and more dependent on Emma.
Emma has to dig down into her group of “special friends” to get Finn and his friends out of the hands of Saladin when the Crusaders find themselves in an unwinnable situation. She is able to get herself and Finn’s people to the Coast at Acre from where they can go any place outside of the Levant. We will have to wait for the next book to see what Finn decides.

Finn leads a troop of Templars in the holy land just before the Third crusade.
The Christian realms and Lords are falling out with each other just when they should be most united against their common enemy Saladin.
Baldwin King of Jerusalem has died and they need to find a successor who can unite everyone.
Finn's Grand Master Gerard is scheming for his own candidate, leading to rash decisions which Finn disagrees with seeing him sent on da dangerous mission as punishment.
If you like battles set in a historic context then you will enjoys this.
Think Colin Iguildon, Mathew Harrify or Simon Scarrow but set in the Holy land in an age of warrior monks.

I really enjoyed the historical elements and the thriller aspect of this novel. It uses it perfectly to tell the story and it was a unique historical setting that I was hoping for. The characters felt like they belonged in this time period and I enjoyed the Templar knight elements to this. Daniel colter has a great riding style, and it works really well with the historical field of this book. I thought he did a great job using the characters to tell the story in the Holy land and had everything that I wanted from this type of book.

Another brilliant book about the Knights Templar by Daniel Colter. This is a follow-on from 'Fortress of Crows', but can easily be read as a stand-alone novel.
The main protagonists are quite complex characters, extremely religious yet incredibly violent when required. Finn, the main character, is mentally torn between his vows of celibacy, his underlying love for a beautiful relic hunter, and his desire to kill Saracens. However, this book is as distanced from a love story as it is possible to get.
The Templars can perhaps be compared to the modern Special Forces, a highly trained and well-armed group of soldiers, who can operate independently and successfully behind enemy lines. Sadly the Templars and their rivals the Hospitallers, were often sacrificed on the personal whims of their ambitious leaders
Each battle scene is described in gory detail, even the description of the sounds of bones being splintered is quite chilling.

The author's historical notes and glossary at the end of the book are well worth reading. The notes flesh out in detail the real and fictitious events written about in the book. The glossary explains the archaic terms used in the novel.
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To summarise, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, especially the writing style of the author. I am really looking forward to reading the next episode of the series.

Very interesting historical fiction! The Crusades is always a fascinating topic and we cannot always fully understand it and the more human side especially. Authors like Daniel Colter have managed to use fiction to accomplish this very well. Blood of Lions is a great epic and readers will thoroughly enjoy this.

"Blood of Lions: A Brutal War for the Holy Land," is part of a series of books on the Templars and the struggle for the Holy Land. I was provided with an ARC of the text by the publisher, Sapere Books. Candidly. the text leaves me at a loss for how to evaluate it. The author is an archaeologist and the text, in terms of setting, clearly reflects his knowledge in that field. It is well written if rather simplistic stylistically. Accounts of battles are both knowledgable
and fascinating and reveal some knowledge of the battle tactics typical of the time, setting and antagonists. The characters seem often almost cartoonish and most of what we learn about them is through rather strained dialogue that puts me in mind of how when you are reading a text about pirates too often everybody is almost reduced to a caricature by overuse of terms like "Argh Matey." The plot is thin and skillful use of vignettes, rather disjointed incidents that seem almost unrelated to any central plot, keeps things moving along. I think the book might be of interest to younger readers with somewhat lower expectations, but that said, I can't recommend it to any except those fascinated with the Templars and the Crusades in general, and even there, better alternatives might exist. For me, it was a rather tedious slog, but I am sure it will find an audience.