I picked up a copy of this book while taking my granddaughter to storytelling at the local library. While she was listening, I was eyeing the shelves nearby and this cover stood out. I think, being next to her picture book level, that this was shelved with middle school books, but it is pretty complex for a ten year old. There are both violence and sexual matters, but handled fairly gently. A girl who has her reputation questioned because she spent time alone with a man, is about as detailed as anything sexual gets. The gentle hand in the violence doesn’t prevent the scenes from haunting my imagination however, dead horses being tossed into a stormy sea, body parts being amputated, captives being herded together and slaughtered. It does after all deal with the crusades and violence was everywhere.My favorite part of the book was in the characters, the two brothers and their father’s ward, grow up together and there is a lot of times when I really came to care what was going to happen in their lives. I’m glad the story started when they were young and uncertain and followed in the events that led to the kind of decisive adults they were. It made the story feel important, that the characters went through something which mattered. The contrast between the two Christian brothers and the young Muslim boy was not really as extreme as one might expect and the story showed his growth and humanity well. The link between all the characters and the Blood Red Horse, who actually was colored in a way that clashed with red blood, was a bit extreme and magical. But if you love horse stories, as I always have, it gives you a magnificent animal to add to the favorites like King of the Wind and Misty and Seabisquit.Overall, I say this is a good read, an interesting bit of history from a period most kids aren’t too familiar with, and an important chance in this current culture, to see the common dreams and humanity in both Christian and Muslim people. I haven’t read the next two, but this works well as a stand alone.