Essex Dogs: The epic Richard & Judy Summer Book Club Pick 2023 from a Sunday Times bestselling historian (Essex Dogs Series 1)

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As they trudge through wind and rain, I was reminded of the scenes in Kenneth Branagh’s film of Henry V in which he leads his bedraggled army. In terms of what happens in the book, it’s hard to say, but as a vague plot summary: they fight and do battle and attempt, on behalf of their own king, to overthrow the French king. The history is impeccable as you would expect, but the characters left me cold and I just never felt I knew them properly. We are shown the minds of those from the top to the bottom of the army, and also small scale action and the storming of castles.

Globally bestselling historian Dan Jones makes his historical fiction debut with Essex Dogs, the explosive first instalment in an epic new trilogy set during the Hundred Years War. Unfortunately, they are a consistent feature in the dialogue and quickly lose any of their initial punch. A couple POVs swap around and it's great to see the war through the eyes of different members - as well as their hilarious dealings with the nobles - a special shoutout to Northampton and Warwick! Despite its author’s professional background, the novel’s relationship to history is notably loose and irreverent.Vital, earthy, and heart-stopping… So deft and funny that you’d never guess this is Dan Jones’ debut work of fiction.

This book promises to be the first of a series dealing with some 14th century free booters or mercenaries, professional soldiers but not like we would use that term today. But “Essex Dogs” is set not in June 1944, close to the end of World War II, but in July 1346, toward the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, and the enemy in the novel, French not German, is armed with crossbows and catapults rather than machine guns or mortars.Nevertheless, things did pick-up but since I knew the book would probably end at Crecy and the outcome of that battle is known the suspense was created in the fictional elements of the plot involving the Dogs and their personal circumstances. There’s also two Welsh archers that could hit a fly’s ass from 300 feet; they are Welsh speakers and don’t understand English. Enough outline to the characters to carry the story but I really couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the main characters, whether they lived or died. The events at the outset of the Hundred Years’ War are thrillingly brought to life through the escapades of the fictional Essex Dogs, a group of men of different ages, from different parts of what is today Great Britain and who speak different languages even.