2.5 ( )

Enjoyed this book and the entire series. Believable characters. Interesting and to me, unknown, historical period. ( )

This title was recommended by a Scandinavian friend after having discussed another author who uses the medieval period (slightly later) to write historical fiction. I am a detail oriented type and found this title to be a treat in that regard. Despite the exceptional detail, I was able to read it in a few days. How much did I like it? Answer: I have ordered the remainder of the trilogy. ( )

I'm having a hard time deciding how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed learning a few things about Sweden (a country I know little about), and most of the characters are interesting, especially Arn and the monks who raised him. On the other hand, the author had some definite points he wanted to make and definite places he needed characters to be, so he's sometimes not terribly subtle with either his foreshadowing of certain people's fates or with the unlikely sequence of events (unlikely, because not even Arn should've been that stupid) that predetermines Arn's journey for the next two books. So while I didn't mind reading this, I don't feel the need to seek out the sequels, which will probably have even more heads being chopped off than this one did. ( )

A few years ago I acquired a Swedish sister-in-law and the family went nuts for anything Swedish. We rented Arn: The Knight Templar and I found it interesting to compare with Kingdom of Heaven, which has a few similarities.

The Road to Jerusalem is the first in Gullou's Crusades trilogy, so it doesn't encompass everything the film covered, but it was nice to have more of Arn's background. Arn Magnusson starts out a bit like the biblical figure of Samuel, in that to fulfill a promise to God, he's given over to the church as a young boy. The monks teach Arn many disciplines and he grows up to be a well educated young man. He is, however, very naive and unaware of the baser side of human nature. The brothers send him out into the world so that he can learn about humanity and be better informed before giving his life over to the church. Arn is involved in the political maneuverings of his clan but a petty revenge places him back at the mercy of the church. The brothers decide that Arn must redeem himself by the sword and send the young man to fight for the holy city of Jerusalem.

The book stops rather suddenly and it makes me want to read the second in the series just to see how Arn matures and turns out. He's certainly a very noble character and one I can admire. ( )