The Road to Jerusalem

Crusades Trilogy Series, Book 1

By: Jan Guillou

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

For power. For passion. For glory.

The epic story of the Knights Templar.

Born in 1150 to a noble Swedish family and coming of age at a monastery under the tutelage of a Cistercian monk and a former Knight Templar, young Arn Magnusson is sent to fulfill his destiny beyond the cloister walls. But the world awaiting him is a place at odds with his monastic ways. And when the murder of a king engulfs Western Götaland into a whirlwind of intrigue and ruthless power plays, headstrong and naive Arn is forced to leave the woman he loves behind and take up arms to battle infidels in the Holy Land.

©1998 Jan Guillou; English translation copyright 2009 by Steven T. Murray (P)2020 Tantor

Excellent!

It took a couple chapters to learn the basics from the storyteller but curiosity won and I listened. I’m anxious for the saga to continue. Beautifully written!!

Fenominal

The mixing of filosofy and recognition of different aspects of life combined with a lovely dry humor manages to envelop a fantastic story, with amazing characters into a absolute must-read. I keep returning to this trilogy. absolutely love it!

Epic Romance with Sweeping History

Every time I return to this story I find myself immersed again in the history, power politics and religious conflict, and that’s what I think I want. But it’s the enduring romance that drives this story forward and makes it impossible to put down.

captivating story

wonderful story! its good to finally read a book that portrays the Templars as honorably as they were.

The cake and ice cream of Historical novels

This is an excellent telling of a story I knew. So we’ll done I didn’t recognize it until the last chapter. Now I feel like I lost a best friend. Don’t miss this one! Looking for the sequel. The reader was a little
to get used too. Make sure you do. You’ll love him, too!

Outstanding historical tale of Scandinavian life in the 11th century

Beautifully written epic saga befitting ancient Scandinavia with such exquisite detail of life and culture of going back to the 11th centuries or more when Europe was still waging a Holy War in Jerusalem. Absorbing story and even more compelling and irresistible characters that one falls in love with instantly. Narrated brilliantly by Gildart Jackson who conveyed the nuanced emotions so deliciously that made it so supremely entertaining!

Very interesting and well written.

I love series books, and want to read all of this series . I enjoyed the extremely well developed characters.
The author gave beautiful descriptions; I felt I was there. The characters were unforgettable.
The big picture of their lives, seen at the end of the story was profoundly deep.

Went looking for trashy historical fiction...

And I got this. It's a very positive and more importantly to me NOT PREACHY view into Christian philosophy, at least thats how I see it. I never realized how universally atheist new books are becoming, and having just a good guy priest, not a former badass(there is one of these, though), not secretly working against the protagonist, or whatever trope that's going around, is ironically refreshing.

I believe somebody was complaining on here about a "misleading title". "They don't even get to Jerusalem til the end!", to which I answer: the book is called "the ROAD TO JERUSALEM and not "WE GOT TO JERUSALEM EARLY" That person sold me a book.

And most importantly ITS NOT ABOUT ENGLAND. I'm an American who knows more about Crecy than Gettysburg because historical fiction writers(and consumers, I imagine) only seem care about English history. Vikings, English Archers, English Knights. That's all we get. Even Christian Cameron had to make his protagonists English, even though theyre barely in England. We might get a France every now and again, but this is an incredibly well written book about medieval SWEDEN. Less England. More anything else.

TLDR, it's not what you're expecting, it's better. If you want big dumb dudes in shiny metal hitting eachother with sticks on horseback, this isn't for you. If you want a thoughtful look modern issues while looking into the past, this will be your jam.

revist an old friend

I read the books to and from base on train when I was 20, here 15 years later I thought I'd do it with audible. and it was great.

Tedious

So I waited to write my review of this book until I finished the series so I could honestly review this book and if the tedium of this title was truly worth it. Unfortunately I would have to say no it wasn’t worth the wait.
I was excited to finally find a historical fiction series for knights templars as I find them so fascinating and is hard to find anything that portrays them in a positive light that they were during those times. Plus I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the narrator Gildart Jackson, who does an amazing job for for my all time favorite historical fiction the master of war series by David Gilman!
I felt that there was WAY too much filler and unnecessary backstory that it took an obnoxiously long time to get to any kind of action and when the action arrived it was very lackluster. I decided to stick it out for three next book hoping it would improve for the next book now that the backstory was out of the way, however I was wrong.