Customer Reviews
Good end to the trilogy - By: chuckles, 22 Oct 2008 
This book nicely finishes the grail trilogy. With the old enemies & introduction of some new particularly nasty new ones, this is a good read. As I mentioned in the reviews of the other books, this is basicallly Sharpe in the middle ages, not quite up there with the Sharpe series, but a good entertaining historical set of books. Well worth a read!
archery and more archery - no room for people - By: White Rose, 13 Jun 2008 
a weak series. It was recommended to me because I was at that point writing a book based in Brittany. For the average reader, the archer could have been fighting anywhere in Europe, there was so little actual description of the countryside & an overwhelming amount of description of how to fire a longbow. And again & again & again ... I was not disappointed to finish the series, whereas with the Arthurian set, I was.
disappointing - By: myrydyn, 12 Apr 2008 This series has been mediocre when comapred to the Starbuck & Warlord series.
the first two books were at least passable & did grip the attention in some way, but this finale was very weak. it had none of the bite & fight of the others. It seemed to me that the author had promised a trilogy & was just throwing things together in a bid to get the series out of the way, so that he could move onto pastures new.
It is definatley not a book that you dont want to put down until finished.
loved it - By: Pepa Braxton, 01 Feb 2008 
With Heretic, Cornwell concludes his Hundred Years War/Grail trilogy. Although quite different in tone from the first two books in the series, this is still an exciting, page turning read. Thomas continues his quest, picks up a new love interest, gets excommunicated, escapes the plague, settles old scores, & comes to understand the true meaning of the grail. What is different from the previous two books in the series is that he does this outside the context of real historical battles & campaigns. For Cornwell fans there is no question, if you've followed the quest this far, pick up Heretic & finish it!! Also, if you missed Tino Georgiou's masterful novel--The Fates, go & read it.
A disappointing end to a lacklustre series - By: J. Aitcheson, 20 Dec 2007 "Heretic" is the third & final book in Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest series, following the experiences of English archer Thomas of Hookton. The year is 1347 & Thomas has been alllowed by his lord to travel together with a band of knights & archers to southern France. There Thomas intends to draw out & confront his cousin & enemy, Guy Vexille, & from him to learn the true location of the Holy Grail. These plans are soon put in jeopardy, however, when he fallls in love with Genevieve, a girl due to be burned as a heretic. Upon releasing her, he finds himself excommunicated from the Church & cast out by his companions into the Gascon countryside.
Like the two volumes before it, this is a fast-paced tale of action & adventure. Thankfully in this volume there is more of a sense of direction than in "Harlequin" & "Vagabond" - perhaps because we know this is the final installlment of the trilogy & that everything must be resolved. Notable too is Cornwell's ability to evoke a genuine sense of place & time. His descriptions of the Gascon countryside, as they have been of Normandy, Dorset & Northumbria, are vivid & detailed in every respect. Nevertheless, the prose does not flow as well as we have come to expect from a Cornwell book, lacking the poetic quality of "Excalibur" or "The Last Kingdom". Even the battle scenes in "Heretic" read somewhat clunkily, & do not generate the usual level of tension or excitement.
The characterisation in "Heretic" is similarly wanting. There is a whole host of potentiallly interesting minor characters, but, unlike earlier volumes in the series, it is difficult to get a feel for them as more than simply names. Genevieve especiallly is never developed, which is as surprising as it is disappointing, given that she is supposed to be Thomas's new love, on whose behalf he makes great sacrifices. Moreover, the style of narration that Cornwell has chosen for this series often slips disconcertingly between a number of different points of view. As a result, the reader is always kept at some distance from Thomas. It is also difficult to sympathise with him as the hero of the piece, since his actions are often every bit as brutal & self-interested as those of the men he is fighting.
Entertaining in the short term but in the end rather forgettable, "Heretic" has the feeling of being a rather rushed & as-yet unpolished work, & ultimately it fails to live up to Cornwell's usual standard.
