So I follow Sean Gibson reviews on Goodreads because I once read a hilariously review of him. It took quite a while to notice that he also is a writer (of real published books!).

And today I stumbled upon this book. And I was not convinced I should read it based upon the blurb. Not my cup of tea. But I was curious enough to read the reviews.

After Anne's review I'm SOLD!

Also this book is rated 444 times and no 2 stars or 1 stars?!

Dude, that's kewl.
(apparently I regressed to being a fifteen year old teenager)

I am able to review this thanks to Sean's gifting of this novel. Thank you!

That being said, on to the review. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the novel right after we left the Alzheimer's Saint Scholar, because that's when all the action started revving up. I tore through the rest like I was on a rampage and I enjoyed the zombies and canopic-jar-sheath holding Nigel's power as well as the fight scenes. They were very well done fight scenes, with just enough tease and breaks at fantastically annoying places that left me hungry for more. They held my attention, and I'll be honest, fight scenes usually don't do it too well for me. I prefer my movies for that kind of thing. This hit me on the nose, though.

What dragged me down was initial slowness of the novel. Sure, victorian lit often had slow bits, but sometimes, like with Charles Dickens, he can move things along like lightning when he wants to. In this case, I wanted to rev things up for quite some time. There might have been an easier way to get the feel of scholarship without dwelling so long on it. It's not Possession, after all. It had more of a feel of a Victorian Dan Brown mystery for the first half of the novel, which is fine as far as that goes, but I'll be honest... I got a bit bored. Still, I appreciated what it was trying to do and worked harder to keep my focus on the tale, and I'm glad I did.

I enjoyed the conflict of themes and those characters that embodied them. I loved how every single character introduced eventually had the spotlight.
Mr. Gibson never had a qualm about killing his darlings, which I really appreciated, and more so when I got to see how those were reused. Waste not, want not. There was never a wasted character.

I suppose I want to complain about one other thing, though. The prelude was like a D&D story, tempting me to believe that the novel was going to be *that* kind of story, so I was rather jarred when the novel started up and continued to be like nothing like the prelude for most of the novel. Sure, it did get explained, eventually, but I was a bit annoyed, especially because it seemed like a lot of promise that I was told I might never taste. You know, the social contract of writers and readers. In this case, it was a minor thing, because all is right with the world after finishing the novel, but it did boot me out of the illusion several times.

Again, not a deal-breaking issue.

I enjoyed the tale, and I have no qualms about reading more. I had fun! ( )

My review can also be found on: https://diaryofdifference.com/2018/06/03/the-camelot-shadow-sean-gibson-book-rev...

''I can either tell you my tale, or I can respond to your feeble witticisms. I cannot, in my mildly inebriated state, do both.’’

This is not your usual story related to King Arthur, Merlin and Camelot. This will, in fact, be quite different story and not only unusual, but one of a kind.

We go back in time when Queen Victoria was ruling over England. In a time when the author really liked to point out the fact that the characters are using trains. It was pointed out so much, that I had to do a bit of research to see if trains existed in that time. They did – apparently England had the oldest rail transport in the world. And Queen Victoria was one of the first royals to use that form of transport too.

Now, I am not even sure why I kept going on about trains… Back to the story…



[b:The Camelot Shadow|24020362|The Camelot Shadow (Camelot Shadow #1)|Sean Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439188786s/24020362.jpg|43082272] covers the story of Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam, a man whose wife is ill from an incurable illness. When an opportunity arises, giving him the chance and hope that he might save the life of his lover, he goes on a mission to find an object from the time when King Arthur was the ruler of England, and Merlin was his companion.

With a help from a group of people, Alfred digs the history and the stories of the past, only to discover that not everything he believed in was true, and not everyone that he trusted is his ally.

A story that reminded me of Dan Brown’s work. Quite similar in the sense of clues, history, what is a myth and what is a fact, though also quite distinctive, as it covers people’s characters so well, describing their personalities in a powerful way.

‘’Wealth. Status. Happiness. A perfect life. All built on an ephemeral foundation, an impossibility masking a lie that, if exposed, if openly acknowledged, would bring it all crashing down around our heads.’’

When a great disappointment comes around, and all hope is gone, people change, and people feel things. A person starts to wonder what they did wrong, what could they have done differently, what if… Alfred is one of the people where we will see his change over the chapters. For better or for worse, I’ll let you decide.

‘’It was Guinevere’s infidelity that brought down Arthur’s Camelot’’ – he said, wiping a trickle of Scotch from his chin with the back of his sleeve. ‘’It was God’s cruelty that brought down mine.’’

A book that explains good and evil in the unusual way. I thought I could explain good and evil, but sometimes my evil can do you good, and your good can do harm to everyone. And power… oh what people are capable to do for power…

‘’Power, Arthur had taught him, was not something to covet, but rather something to treat in the same manner one might handle a wild mastiff – with considerable respect, constant vigilance, and a trace of fear. ‘’

If you are a fan of history fiction, and stories about Arthur and Merlin, you would definitely want to dive in into this book and get lost into the world. And that is not the only thing that this book covers… It covers hope, faith, loss, love, good, evil, power, guilt and everything in between. Get ready for an adventure. One full of bravery and magic. And maybe… maybe some hope.

A huge thank you to the author, [a:Sean Gibson|9824811|Sean Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1416849464p2/9824811.jpg], who was kind enough to give me an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Full review can be found on my website: https://diaryofdifference.com/2018/06/03/the-camelot-shadow-sean-gibson-book-rev...

‘’I can either tell you my tale, or I can respond to your feeble witticisms. I cannot, in my mildly inebriated state, do both.’’

This is not your usual story related to King Arthur, Merlin and Camelot. This will, in fact, be quite different story and not only unusual, but one of a kind.

We go back in time when Queen Victoria was ruling over England. In a time when the author really liked to point out the fact that the characters are using trains. It was pointed out so much, that I had to do a bit of research to see if trains existed in that time. They did – apparently England had the oldest rail transport in the world. And Queen Victoria was one of the first royals to use that form of transport too.

Now, I am not even sure why I kept going on about trains… Back to the story…

The Camelot Shadow covers the story of Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam, a man whose wife is ill from an incurable illness. When an opportunity arises, giving him the chance and hope that he might save the life of his lover, he goes on a mission to find an object from the time when King Arthur was the ruler of England, and Merlin was his companion.

With a help from a group of people, Alfred digs the history and the stories of the past, only to discover that not everything he believed in was true, and not everyone that he trusted is his ally.

A story that reminded me of Dan Brown’s work. Quite similar in the sense of clues, history, what is a myth and what is a fact, though also quite distinctive, as it covers people’s characters so well, describing their personalities in a powerful way.

‘’Wealth. Status. Happiness. A perfect life. All built on an ephemeral foundation, an impossibility masking a lie that, if exposed, if openly acknowledged, would bring it all crashing down around our heads.’’

When a great disappointment comes around, and all hope is gone, people change, and people feel things. A person starts to wonder what they did wrong, what could they have done differently, what if… Alfred is one of the people where we will see his change over the chapters. For better or for worse, I’ll let you decide.

‘’It was Guinevere’s infidelity that brought down Arthur’s Camelot’’ – he said, wiping a trickle of Scotch from his chin with the back of his sleeve. ‘’It was God’s cruelty that brought down mine.’’

A book that explains good and evil in the unusual way. I thought I could explain good and evil, but sometimes my evil can do you good, and your good can do harm to everyone. And power… oh what people are capable to do for power…

‘’Power, Arthur had taught him, was not something to covet, but rather something to treat in the same manner one might handle a wild mastiff – with considerable respect, constant vigilance, and a trace of fear. ‘’

If you are a fan of history fiction, and stories about Arthur and Merlin, you would definitely want to dive in into this book and get lost into the world. And that is not the only thing that this book covers… It covers hope, faith, loss, love, good, evil, power, guilt and everything in between. Get ready for an adventure. One full of bravery and magic. And maybe… maybe some hope.

A huge thank you to the author, Sean Gibson, who was kind enough to give me an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

There’s always an automatic, free-pass-given brownie point bonus when the protagonist is a book lover, because – seriously - as a reader, reading stories about characters who obsess with books makes sense – especially when they have to use books in the adventure at hand.

The Camelot Shadow focuses on Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam, a man who not only loves reading, but who loves collecting valuable tomes (he blows me out of the running with that since I only indulge in cheap books.) The story is a historical Arthurian fantasy adventure type, something I have little experience with. It seems everyone in the world but me knows about King Arthur and tales surrounding, to the point where there is even a fantasy sub-division named about him.

Even though I know little about it, I found the subject interesting as it unraveled; it wasn’t too out there for me to grasp. There are a few hints and jabs in the wrong directions to leave the reader a few surprises, and the historical feel is one that slowly twists and reveals as you go through the motions with the main character. It’s multiple POV, yet thankfully the shift changes only when needed, staying mainly in Lord Alfred’s head.

Alfred was likeable – he was older, enjoyed keeping to himself, a sympathetic friend, intellectual type who remained humble. His best friend was a favorite of mine, the bookseller who had more up his sleeve than he was showing. The villain was creepy, unusual, and made even more interesting because of the other semi-villains he surrounded himself with. And Trusty John was just awesome, really, that’s all there is to say about him.

What made the book so enjoyable wasn’t so much the day old power-struggle of good and evil, but the political machinations that kept popping up in both the good and bad circles. Some people change face later, some hesitate, some follow because they’re misled, and others stay so loyal throughout that they fit the definition of fanaticism.

It’s a slower novel, which works since the plot is directed by scholarly types. Instead of getting an excitable, energetic adventurer, we get a man who can’t resist the lure of this mystery and the potential hope it holds for his wife. I loved Sean Gibson’s writing style - I think it fit the historical time period and this sort of adventure ideally.

The Camelot Shadow has layers of intrigue, some epic battles, intelligent twists, and characters who stand out and stand up. Recommended.
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