Set in period between the Seventh and Ninth Crusades, Brethren purports to tell the story if the Crusades from both the East's and the West's points of view. The West's version is told through the tale of Will, training to follow in his father's footsteps as a Knight in the Order of the Templar, while the East's view is depicted through the tale of Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Baybars.

The Templars, as usual the subject of speculation and rumours of secret societies, are here given a secret Order within and Order, the Brethren of the title, who's existence, and the existence of the while Templar order, is threatened by the theft of a book, the recovery of which is behind the main plot lines in the book.

The premise is a good idea imperfectly executed. The story itself feels overlong; when the 'hero' gets into yet another scrape, it begins to feel unnecessary, the plot being held back rather than moved forward. Having said that, there also appear to be sudden halts in narrative, tales half-told then rushed to a conclusion by moving the time of several months at the turn of a page and recounting events in the meantime in a few paragraphs; leaving me feeling short-changed. Perhaps it is not that the book is overly long, but the decisions regarding what should be left in and what taken out were poorly made.

Adding to the feeling of unnecessary length are frequent passages of superfluous detail. It is important to set a scene, and sometimes Young does this beautifully, but at others, her words do not add anything to the scene. Again, poor editing decisions.

I also had difficulty relating to the lead character. I feel he is poorly drawn, his motivation not fully explored, making his actions at time seem odd. Other Westerners are similarly hollow, almost caricature, with thought and feeling eluded to but never fully explored - Simon the groom is a prime example.

The one character who did have substance was Baybars. It is unfortunate that the balance of the book is favoured towards the West, as I would have liked to have read more of this character. Perhaps he gets more airtime in the later books in this trilogy ( )

While I liked the story I didn't like any the characters. ( )

Brethren, the first novel in British author Robyn Young's Brethren trilogy, follows young sergeant Will Campbell from the Templar fortresses of London and Paris to the Templar strongholds of Acre and Antioch in the Holy Land as he seeks not only to recover an important book stolen from the Paris Temple, but also to discover himself. Brethren also chronicles the rise and rule of the powerful Egyptian Sultan Baybars, whose fate will ultimately have him cross paths with Will Campbell.

In Brethren, Young paints a vivid portrait of the inner sanctums of the Knights Templar and brings the medieval world to life. I also thought Young did a very good job of developing each of her characters, whether they were principal or secondary ones. Although this novel was Young's first, I think it read more like the work of a veteran writer than that of a debut author.

The story itself was broad in scope and held my interest throughout and, while I initially found some story lines a bit disconnected from the main plot, by the end I thought Young did a good job of bringing all the various story lines together and, in so doing, laid a solid foundation for the second novel in the Brethren trilogy, Crusade.

I definitely recommend this book to readers interested in historical fiction about the Knights Templar and the Crusades, as well as those interested in historical thrillers. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the trilogy. ( )

A strong start to an interesting retelling of 13th Century Outremer. Descriptions of combat and fortification are a bit limited, but character development is solid. Looking forward to the next addition to the trilogy - although a bit worried that the author covers too much time in a single work. ( )

It took me a while to get enough of the story to begin to recognize the characters and their different story lines - at times it felt a little too broad a sweep with so many characters. I found Will somewhat irritating - too self-centred by far until the last few chapters. I realize that some of that came from a point of immaturity on the character's part, but as he grew and experienced more he didn't seem to get much better until the events near the end of the book. I also felt that I never really got to grip with Baybars and where at first his motivations seemed understandable, as the story progressed I seemed to lose the grasp I had. I'm going to leave it a while before deciding whether to continue with the series. ( )