Format: Paperback, 400 pages
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Source: Library
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Praise be to Our Lady of Eternal Sorrows, and blessed be the Ascended
Martyr.' Those were the words on lips of the faithful: Blessed be the
Ascended Martyr, and woe betide you if you thought otherwise. The word
Unbeliever had become a death sentence on the streets in those days.
Gangster, soldier, priest. Governor, knight, and above all, Queen's Man.
Once,
Tomas Piety looked after his men, body and soul, as best he could. Then
those who ran his country decided his dark talents would better serve
in the corridors of power.
Crushed by the power of the Queen's
Men and with the Skanian menace rising once more on the streets of
Ellinburg, Tomas Piety is forced to turn to old friends, old debts and
untrustworthy alliances.
Meanwhile in the capital city of
Dannsburg, Dieter Vogel is beginning to wonder if the horror he has
unleashed in the Martyr's Disciples might be getting out of control.
With
revolution brewing and tragedy and terrorism running rife in the
cities, Piety and Vogel must each weigh the cost of a crown.
Priest of Crowns, by author Peter McLean, is the fourth installment in the authors War of the Rose Throne series. Thomas Piety, gangster, soldier, priest, governor, Queen's Man, Knight of the Rose Throne, Councilor of the North Ward, has some issues, and they are not small. He is estranged from his wife Ailsa who is also a Queen's Man, he watched as Lord Vogel, Lord Chief Judiciary, decided to make a powerful move that put him in the role of Prince Regent since the Grand Duke of Varnburg is only 10-years-old and years from taking the throne for himself.
While Vogel is blaming Skanians for the chaos, he has also created a new group called Martyr's Disciples to stir up even more trouble. For what reason? Another war? More power? Trying to get out of the line of fire, as it were, Tomas takes his crew back home to Ellinburg. Tomas soon finds that his home is once again on the forefront of destroying itself because of two groups who want power, and are willing to do whatever it takes to do so. Even forcing Tomas to take matters into his own hands by making an alliance in order to clean up his town so he can focus on how to defeat Vogel.
One of the things I adore about this author is that he doesn't hold anything back. If he wants characters to die, they die, they don't get to stick around to the end of the journey. There is nothing beautiful about this series. With Tomas, he is a soldier who would be diagnosed with PTSD by today's specialists. He has black outs. He drinks heavily. He does what he needs even though his own people look at him as though he has two heads. His adopted son is slowly having issues and there's nothing he can to do help him. His own alleged wife has fully embraced what Vogel is cooking put them on a collision course.
This is a story filled with political machinations that will affect everyone involved, including Tomas's former Pious Men who are now under the leadership of Bloody Anne. The story is never boring. It keeps driving forward. There is, of course, lots of scheming and manipulations, and the story never once felt like it was boring. Tomas knows that in order to win, he has to do things that would not be considered humane if they took place in this world, and maybe, just maybe, we need a real life Tomas Piety in our world to fix the mess that politicians and the media has created.
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