Man of Honour - Rated 
Another winner from Iain Gale, easy reading & not unlike Sharp, Also a feel for the time Marlborough & Red Coats.
An adequate start but don't get excited - Rated 
Let's be honest, many of us buy such historical novels in the hope that we'll meet an equal to Cornwall. We won't and sadly Man of Honour is another attempt to launch a 'Sharpe' like character. I'll be honest, I love miliatry history, historical fiction et al but this was very wooden. The language and characterisation are two dimensional and all rather obvious, I sense the reserach was limited as there's no smell of powder, no immersion into life in the field or sense of period about the narrative. It's all abit obvious sadly - buy if you've run out of anything better.
Not a bad start... - Rated
All in all, this isn't a bad little story. I found the characters and the general feel of it quite enjoyable, the plot, perhaps needs some work. I was surprised to find though that quite a few little nagging mistakes crept into the story i.e. (but please do not yet these put you off)
In one point Steel's Grenadiers; during the loading process, somehow prime their pans, without first having bitten into their cartridges. At that time, priming flasks were no longer worn by British soldiers. So this would be quite impossible.
Jack Steel introduces himself as 'James' Steel at one point in the story -not as part of the plot, his name is simply miss spelt.
The British Land Pattern musket The 'Brown Bess' makes an appearance in the story. The story is set in 1704. The Brown Bess was not designed and issued until the 1720s.
And I think they put to much emphasis on the grenades. In reality, if the things were lucky enough not to blow the user's hand off and actually reach the enemy before blowing up, they may take a foot off, maybe. But in the story they are able to obliterate entire battalions.
But, all that said, it is a novel, fiction. So one has to allow certain small evils in the pursuit of excitement. Despite the few mistakes (and it was a few) I picked up, I did enjoy the book and actually found myself picking it up to read because I wanted to, and not simply to get my money's worth out of something I bought.
Again, all in all, for the first in a series it is not bad and I will be reading the next. I am as guilty as the next for this but, I feel that people will enjoy this book ( and others like it) more if they go into it with an open mind, instead of instantly comparing it to Sharpe.
Have read this before somewhere! - Rated 
Have read this before somewhere! It was Sharpe wrote by B Cornwell. The structure of the characters is very similar, also think the character names could have been a bit more thought, e.g. main character 'Steel' and his sargeant sidekick is 'Slaughter'. Reminded me of a comic.
A great debut. - Rated 
I'd have thought entering the genre of military fiction might prove to be something of a bear-pit for a new series, but not a bit of it. I was greatly impressed by 'Four Days in June' a stand alone novel based on the real events surrounding the Battle of Waterloo. This is a great start to a new series,Jack Steel and Sergeant Slaughter are a superb partnership, a bit like Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper. Set during the Wars of the Spanish Succession it illustrates Louis XIV was just as greedy to aquire vast territory in Europe as Napolean was 90 or so years later.
I have only one tiny niggle, did the rank of Brigadier in fact exist in Marlborough's army?
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