Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids - Howard of Warwick

   2015; 306 pages.  Book 5 (out of 35) in the “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series.  Full Title: “Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids: We’re Going on a Murder”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Cozy Mystery; Humorous Historical Fiction; British Humor; Druids.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

   Oh what a joy!  Brother Hermitage, the weaver Wat,  and the other weaver Cwen are going on a trip!  To the exotic land of Wales!  At the request of King William, no less.  At least that’s what William’s second-in-command, Le Pedvin, says.

 

    King William isn’t funding the trip, but that shouldn’t be a problem.  Hospitality is always extended to traveling monks like Brother Hermitage.  Religion has its perks.

 

    Alas, they have been given a formidable task—to locate one of William’s agents.  He was last heard from somewhere in Wales, but who knows where he is now.  And since the Welsh hate the Normans as much as the Saxons do, the agent could be either dead or alive by now.

 

    Royal agents come and go, and in truth William and Le Pedvin probably don’t care whether the missing one is a corpse or not.  But in the last message received from him, the agent said he’d discovered a huge stash of gold nearby.

 

    And that gold means William is very anxious to locate and speak to the agent face-to-face.

 

What’s To Like...

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids is the fifth book in Howard of Warwick’s “Chronicles of Brother Hermitage” series. It’s also the fifth book I’ve read in this series, albeit not in chronological order.

 

    The tale is told from three points of view.  The main one recounts Hermitage, Cwen, and Wat’s misadventures, dealing for the most part with how their entourage swells, despite their best efforts.  The second plot thread is set in a Welsh village, where druidic visions and prophecy are rife,  The third plotline involves the local noble in that village’s area, Lord Bermo, who's become quite interested in what's going on in his territory.  The reader can of course count on all three threads eventually coming together.

 

    Any story that has druids in it will resonate with me; druidism is my choice whenever circumstances require me to list my religious preference.  Here, their “magick” powers are at some times impressive, and other times mundane, which works surprisingly well.

 

     The reader joins Hermitage as he journeys westward from London to the Welsh border.  Along the way we stop in places like Staines, Silchester, and Wanborough, and in each case pick up unwanted followers.  At one point, we even learn the art of “straggling”, which was a blast.

 

     The ending is good, being mostly “cozy-ish” and logical, and with a couple ofout-of-the-blue plot twists, which neither Hermitage or I saw coming.  Everything works out well for all concerned, which frankly was not an easy task.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 726 ratings and 81 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.30/5 based on 282 ratings and 20 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “And who might you be?”

    “More,” said More.

    “And who might you be, my pretty fellow?”

    Clearly mad.

    “That’s me name.”  More sounded very proud of this.

    “Well, well, master That.  I can see you are of our number.”

    “Eh?”  It took a lot to confuse More, mainly because he spent most of his time confusing other people. (loc. 2692)

 

    The figure was more like a hermit than most hermits Hermitage had ever seen.  He had been tempted to the isolated life himself, and even directed to it on one or two occasions.  The problem had always been that the hermits he met seemed to have no gainful employment outside of starving and begging.  They never considered great arguments.  They never studied illuminating texts.  They just sat in caves and thought.  (loc. 3924)

 

Kindle Details…

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  The other books in the series range in price from $0.99 to $4.99, with the more recent the book, the more it costs.

 

“What’s the point of having the upper hand,” Cwen argued, “if you can’t drop it on people?”  (loc. 2598)

    Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids is a cozy mystery, and therefore is almost profanity-free.  I spotted just four instances in the entire book, all of them referencing the Underworld.  I don’t recall any blood, gore, or adult situations.

 

    The bigger issue was the editing.  Typos abound, most of them of the punctuation ilk.  Missing commas in the dialogue were the most numerous; I counted 22 of them.  Missing quotation marks also showed up several times, along with a few commonplace typos such as solider/soldier.

 

    But I’ve come to accept those slip-ups in this series, because along with them comes a fascinating historical fiction mystery set in the 11^th-century Britain.  To boot, the text is loaded with wit and satire, which keeps my interest just fine.

 

    For me, Hermitage, Wat and Some Druids was a splendid and satisfying read.  It is fast-paced and has a nice “Medieval" feel to it.  I’m tempted to make my next Brother Hermitage read one of the more recent ones to see if the editing improves as the series progresses.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Our heroes have a brief sojourn in Staines, which brought back poignant memories for me because I've sojourned there as well.  It makes me wonder if Brother Hermitage will at some time journey to nearby Chertsey, where I have also enjoyed the hospitality of friends.