Review: Bloodguard

Bloodguard

Written by: Cece Robson

Red Tower Books

2024

A blend of The Shannara Chronicles and Gladiator, Bloodguard fails to live up to its inspiration.

Okay, I wanted to like Bloodguard. I was incredibly excited when it was announced because I love both Dungeons and Dragons and Gladiator. So, needless to say, my expectations were high.

That was my biggest mistake.

Lackluster

I think when it comes to Red Tower Books, I just have to go into it with low expectations. That’s not to say the books are bad, but they don’t blow me away.

Now, Bloodguard was just a horrible disappointment.

The opening chapter has a lot of promise, but that was quickly ruined by the excessive cursing. I’m not opposed to cursing; I have a sailor’s mouth, I was probably a pirate in a past life, but it didn’t work here.

The excessive cursing felt out of place and forced and made the story feel vulgar. It just didn’t work because it didn’t seem to fit. Yes, Leith is a Gladiator, but he’s too whiney. He chose this path; he chose it knowing he could die, knowing it was an unfair situation. But the constant whining about it and the whining about its unfairness added to the incessant cursing, making Bloodguard feel trite.

I wasn’t a fan of it and had to put the book down for two days and read something else. I honestly debated adding it to my DNF pile.

I wish I had.

Poorly Written

I picked Bloodguard back up and then continued to read it, and it felt like it was getting better. I wish there had been a little more development in the relationship between Maeve and Leith because it felt like it was supposed to be a slow-burn romance that turned into an Insta-love romance.

Robson was doing a great job developing the friendship between the two. I wish she had done more to increase the depth of their character dynamics.

But, again, it just was bogged down by the sex scenes that were honestly cringe.

There is a scene where he is f***ing her on a table, and the sentence above that paragraph is literally this:

“Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.”

Robson did this to note how the table banging into the wall was in sync with their movements. Literally, Leith remarks on that, and it was so cringeworthy. Then, the language in the scene, the cursing, again, felt out of place and forced.

Honestly, the scene would have been better without that sentence. If I were an editor, I would have wiped it; it was unnecessary. He comments about it, which is enough to capture what is happening in the scene.

This is just one example of how rudimentary the storytelling is. Robson does this again with “Cling. Clang. Cling” to show two swords clashing in a fight. Again, it was an unnecessary detail, and if this is what the novel is, I’m not surprised the publishing date got pushed back three times.

It lacked substance. It was as though Robson was trying to squeeze every little gladiator fighting cliché into Bloodguard as possible. And then, in the end, Meave was just annoying; I wanted to behead her myself. She was so closed off and stupid, for lack of a better word. I wanted to hit her and tell her to just shut up.

Final Thoughts

Bloodguard was said to be “Gladiator meets Dungeons and Dragons.” No, it is nothing like D&D. As someone who reads and plays D&D, I feel this was more like The Shannara Chronicles. But even that could not save this book for me. It felt trite, rudimentary, and lacked development on all levels.

Cynthia Ayala

Cynthia Ayala-Bujnicki majored in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. Editor-in-chief of Cyn's Workshop, she loves to read and write while tending to her pepper plants. She currently lives in South Florida with her husband, two kids Dante and Selene and two furbabies Mr. J the Kitten who Thinks He's Batman (yes, that is his full name) and Nyx.