Five Leaf Clover: The King's Watch, Book 9

Excellent series of books Well worth the read.

This is a great easy read series

Well written but a large and complex cast of characters make this series best read back to back. If you have a long gap between books it is hard to pick up the thread. The books will never be stand alone novels and may be best as fewer but longer books

Conrad is back, doing something 'off the books'to resolve his own sense of family honour.There are dwarfs and the mannwolf pack - again! - and we join Conrad in getting a little too closely entangled with the Fae for a while.Politics among all the parties plays a strong part in the story and its outcome. Magic and even maths have apart to play.Another story where once the action kicks in a fast ride is guaranteed and Conrad acts as nemesis again!Well worth the ride and I'm still hooked enough to want to know what happens next. Nice one!!

Conrad’s magical circle of family and friends continues to expand as his exploits eddy ever onwards.I do find some of the magical (magical?) stuff to be getting a tad involved and a little confusing but the plots in these books are usually pretty well thought out and intricate enough.This book is fairly representative of the series but I would recommend reading the series from book one. I get a little confused about who’s who and some of the events of the past even though I did start with book 1!

Once again, Mark Hayden has taken me back to places of happiness. The Lake District, Cheshire and a blessing from the Allfather, my honeymoon. Way back at the beginning of this Century my Soul Mate and I had our honeymoon in Eire where a bottle of Connemara awaited us in the hotel. We were lucky enough to visit the magic of Newgrange. I have often wrote about the magic of writing, the magic to make words come alive in your head and minds eye, Mark Hayden is one of those magicians who can make you remember the joy you had as a child when it was Christmas Day. This saga as told by Conrad transports you away from the crazy stuff of this world. Thank you Mark - Sláinte

Mark Hayden is a very good storyteller, with a particular knack for drawing the reader into his invented world and making us impatient for more. My reservations in the previous books have been twofold – a carelessness which led him to leave some jarring continuity errors in the text, and the inclusion of fairly one-dimensional stereotypical characters who often seem to be there as much to pander to political correctness as to further the plot. In the latest volume, Mark has addressed these shortcomings, including what he himself admits are “Irish clichés”, and the result is the best book so far. The story line is a fairly complicated one, and although I’m impatient to read the next volume I’ll be happy to re-read this one in the meantime. Discovering the “King’s Watch” series has been a bright spot during lockdown!

Lacks the captivating of the first novels. All running out of steam a bit. So many endless boring meetings in pubs.Then when we get into the action, the final few chapters are all guns blazing.It’s like a firework show that phut phut phuts family for 3/4 of an hour then suddenly jumps to a 30 second spectacular bonanza. And then stops and you’re left watching the dying Catherine wheel as it slows to sad halt and hangs limply not quite going out, as you secretly harbour depressing hope that some magic will start it up properly again.