Jo's Old Site

This is the seventh book that John Flanagan wrote in his Ranger’s Apprentice series. And as the events in this book took place before the events of book five and six, I decided to do a review on book seven before doing reviews on books five and six.

Also like all the other Ranger Apprentice books the seventh book is published by Random House Australia and the ISBN is 978-1-74166-209-2 and the other ISBN number is 9 781741 662092. In this book Halt’s and Lady Pauline’s wedding is gate crashed by a Skandian named Svengal. As the reason he is sent there is to get help for Erak who is now the Oberjarl of Skandia.

The Araluens agree to pay the ransom as Erak is being held hostage in Arrida, and I think the book stated that the reason why Erak told Svengal to go to Araluen instead of their own country is because they knew that paying a ransom even for their Oberjarl wouldn’t have gone down well. And the other reason is that they knew that it was a set up and also knew who might have been behind it.

Will, Halt, Horace, and Gilan are the ones that are sent on this mission, but King Duncan is very reluctant at first to let his daughter who is Princess Cassandra go as his representative. But after seeking some advice from Lady Pauline he eventually comes round and allows his daughter to go. Also after the mission party arrive in Arrida they soon find out that there is some decieving going on: while the negotiation was in progress.

Then after the agreement was finally made the mission party then finds out: that Selethen had Erak escorted to somewhere else. He then agrees to take them to where Erak was now being held as the Princess wasn’t going to hand over the ransom before then.

But the journey there meant that they had to go through a desert, and Will loses his horse because he had let go of Tug’s reins during a sandstorm. The party then separates as Will goes off on his own to find him and the part that had brought me to tears on the first reading is after Will had found Tug again, to get him back he had to risk losing him again. But that wasn’t the end of this story.