To Read, Perchance to Dream: Book Review: The Broken Sword by Joseph Robert Lewis

For fans of swashbuckling adventures such as The Princess Bride and The Three Musketeers:
When they tried to conquer the New World, the Espani lost everything: soldiers, ships, wealth, and even their faith. But Don Lorenzo Quesada believes an ancient holy relic will restore his country to prosperity and honor, unless the military finds it first. Accompanied by his best fencing students, his Incan wife, and her sabre-toothed cat, Lorenzo races across his wintry homeland through a gauntlet of blood-thirsty assassins, undead demons, and giant beasts to recover the sacred skyfire stone.
But when the stone is stolen and a massive Espani warship sets sail for Marrakesh, Lorenzo must stop a war that could destroy all the nations of the Middle Sea, even if it costs him both the holy stone and his life.
Readers return to The Other Earth in this stunning vision of an alternate world where fantastical machines sail the seas and the skies, enormous prehistoric beasts still roam the earth, and the restless dead walk among the living.

This is Book 2 in the Halcyon Trilogy, I did not read Book 1. I did feel a little like I was missing things when reading this book. There were references to things that obviously happened in the first book and I didn't always understand what was going on.

Fantasy is my favorite genre, but I had a hard time getting into this novel. There was so much of the same thing going on, travelling here, getting into a fight. Travelling there, getting into a fight. It was usually the same person they were fighting. A lot of the characters were flat and uninteresting. Lorenzo and his wife didn't start feeling real and engaging to me until almost the end.

I loved the huge bird for riding and the pet tiger, I wish they had been used more. I enjoyed the bits of humor that came through here and there throughout the story, if only it had been used more as well.

I see from other reviews that some people did really enjoy this book, so if you enjoy fantasy and steampunk, give this one a look.