Lauren Ducommun

My journey to read through Middle Grade Christian Fiction continues. This week I finished listening to The Blades of Eternity and the Keeper of Peace by Zach Fox. This story is set in another world, where four kingdoms are on the verge of war. One young prince is determined to help find the missing Keeper of Peace. 

Fox did a great job with moving the plot and creating interesting scenes and memorable characters. After a few DNFs, it was encouraging to read a middle-grade novel that kept me engaged. There were also unexpected twists and turns. However, the content feels more appropriate for 10+, and there were a few cheesy and strange parts, which brings my rating down to a 3/5.

Allegory Feels Forced and Cheesy 

Because this story was set in “another world”, it felt out of place to have such similar religious language to our own. The characters would often say “for the glory of the Lamb” or “the will of the Lamb”, and would even see the Lamb (which in the audiobook had a deep grown man’s voice). In one scene, when the main character hugs the Lamb, we learn:

“The clarity he felt in the presence of the Lamb reminded him of something he felt at church during one of Father Flick’s sermons.”

The mention of church, sermons, and seminaries felt distracting, as it pulled me out of this fantastical realm and back into my own. 

What felt even stranger was when Merlin was introduced; a character who brought the technology of batteries, electricity, and “room swapping” into this fictional world. I was very confused to see the legendary British character Merlin alongside talking rabbits and the princes from this realm.  Again, it pulled me away from the world Fox was trying to create as I was trying to sort out where and how Merlin got here. 

Content Considerations:

+ violence, fighting
+ racism
+ teenage angst
+ name-calling, bullying
+ attraction between prince and princess(es): head resting on arm; touching face and hair; staring into each other’s eyes; kiss on the cheek. Not “inappropriate” touch, but slightly awkward.

Theological Considerations:

+ Their followers of the Lamb use “beating posts”:

“Each day, they struck their post with a dull sword for each sin they’d committed during the day, plus one extra for the sins they weren’t aware of. Then, once a year, they brought their posts to the temple where the priests burned them.”

Though Mel is told in the first chapter that the older generation forgot to tell the younger generation the “why” behind the posts. That “the post is a reminder not of your sin but of your deliverance from it.” I think it might be some sort of allusion to the Old Testament Law? 

+ *Spoiler Alert*: After the death of a main character, the story ends with Mel using beating posts in a different way:

“He wouldn’t stop beating posts until Vashti was safe.
If she could be saved.”

This felt strange, almost implying that Mel hoped to relieve his friend from some sort of purgatory through his actions. There was no further explanation–the story abruptly ends.

+ Some parents may want to be aware that the author is a youth pastor at a non-denominational Pentecostal church. I’m not sure what his views on the eternal security of the believer are, or whether other doctrinal views will come up in this book.

Summary

Overall, some readers would enjoy the world the author created. However, the writing quality is not worthy of a classic, and it has some oddities. I made it through the end of the book, with my main complaints being the strange allegory and the attraction between the male protagonist and the two princesses. Because of some of the content, I would probably move this from a Middle Grade level to ages 10 and up. It’s challenging, though, because the reading level and writing quality are probably not as interesting for ages 10+.

Blades of Eternity and the Keeper of Peace
by Zach Fox
Harvest Kids, 2025
224 pages

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