The Last Knight by Hilari Bell

It’s been two centuries since being a knight was an acceptable career path in the medieval land where The Last Knight takes place.  But that fact doesn’t stop Sir Michael Sevenson from wandering around as a knight errant and offering to help people who need assistance.  This causes most people he encounters to laugh in his face, and also causes a massive amount of embarrassment for Sir Michael’s very reluctant squire.  Fisk is a teenage criminal that Sir Michael saved from the gallows on the condition that he works off his debt as a squire. 

The trouble starts soon for this unlikely pair of teen heroes.  After gallantly rescuing a damsel trapped in a tower, the pair is promptly arrested because the “damsel” turns out to have been locked in the tower for murdering her husband.  So the would-be heroes are in jail and the killer that they accidently set free is roaming the country side.  Sir Michael’s father bails them out and they set off to find and recapture the murdering damsel. 

This is the first book by Hilari Bell that I’ve read and I absolutely adored it.  The characters were wonderful and endlessly entertaining.  Fisk is a hilarious, sarcastic jerk who thinks that Michael is noble and honest to the point of being delusional.  Michael just wants to be kind and help everyone, including his dishonest squire.  The chapters are told in alternating points of view, and the two main characters have VERY different perspectives.  The story was exciting, with a perfect touch of fantasy and kept me guessing the whole time.  It was also more realistic than some adventure stories that I’ve read.  Plans don’t always work for the heroes, and the ones that do are because of clever strategy and patience.  Throughout the book, I kept thinking how brilliant Fisk and Michael were and that I need to remember their technique if I’m ever sneaking into a castle through a stable or escaping off of a slave ship.  This book is the first in the Knight and Rogue series, which I am definitely planning on reading more of.

Watch the book trailer: