War of the Wolf by Bernard Cornwell

War of the Wolf by Barnard Cornwell --- 352 pages including Historical Note

Bernard Cornwell’s War of the Wolf is the latest, but (fingers crossed) not the last chapter in his Saxon Tales, the basis for the popular British television series The Last Kingdom, which tells of the ninth-tenth century struggle to unite the Saxon, Danish and Norse settlements into one Englaland, with one king and one (Christian) church.

In this eleventh book in the series, Uhtred is now over sixty years old but still riding against his enemies, and still a force to be reckoned with. Although Cornwell sensibly cuts Uhtred some slack --- his seconds in command ride either side of him to protect him, and he fights from the third row in the shield wall now,  letting younger warriors take the brunt of battle. But Uhtred is still the strategist; his battle craft assures victory against all odds.

His new enemy is Skoll, a Norse raider who has been driven out of Ireland and plots to wrest the kingship of Northumbria from Uhtred’s Danish son-in-law, Sigtrygger. Skoll has a blind sorcerer who can kill men with the power of his sightless eyes, and berserkers who eat poisonous henbane to induce a battle frenzy like a howling pack of wolves. Their savagery terrifies anyone who tries to face them. Anyone but Uhtred.

Uhtred himself seems to have grown more stark and implacable in dealing with his enemies as he has grown older. Yet at the same time maturity has allowed him to understand how competing loyalties and bonds of affection blur the boundaries between friendship and enmity.

Uhtred is a man who has lived his life straddling two worlds — the Saxons and the Danes, the Christians and the pagans. That struggle continues, with Uhtred as always, caught in the middle.

The end will come, inevitably --- but for fans of the Saxon Tales, hopefully, not too soon.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the New York Journal of Books.

Click HERE to read the review from the Book Reporter.

Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell

Fools and Mortals: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell --- 370 pages including Historical Note.

"I died just after the clock in the passageway struck nine. There are those who claim that Her Majesty, Elizabeth, by the grace of God. Queen of England, France, and of Ireland, will not allow clocks to strike the hour in her palaces. Time is not allowed to pass for her. She has defeated time. But that clock struck. I remember it.
I counted the bells. Nine. Then my killer struck.
And I died." 

What a way to start!

Fools and Mortals is a complete change of scene, time and character for Bernard Cornwell, best known for action-oriented historical fiction celebrating British fighting men.

Fools and Mortals is set in Elizabethan London, but Cornwell's protagonist is the decidedly unmilitant young Richard Shakespeare, ne'er-do-well player (actor) and petty thief, eking out a meager living playing female roles at the playhouse where his brother William is a shareholder and house playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

The theater business is booming despite the disapproval and sometimes outright persecution of zealous Puritans and Pursuivants and Cornwell does a splendid job of recreating the sights, sounds and smells of the period so that his readers experience what it was like to be a player in a company competing for patronage and audiences with rival theaters, competing with other players in your own company for the best parts and the most lines. Players are easy to come by, but the plays themselves are precious, painstakingly copied by hand, and jealously guarded from all rivals. It is 1595 and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are rehearsing a new play,  "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," to be performed at the wedding of the Lord Chamberlain's grand-daughter, with the Queen herself perhaps honoring the occasion with he presence.

Cornwell cleverly makes the most of this unique perspective on one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, taking us through rehearsals with the players all unaware and anxious over how the play will be received. There is one comic scene where Lady Hunsford presides over a rehearsal with an hourglass, announcing that the play is too long, and ordering William to cut the play by half an hour. 
Meanwhile a potential rival plots to steal William's newest play, about two young lovers doomed by the rivalry between their two families.

Richard sees this plot as a means to finally gain leverage over his older brother and achieve his ambition to play men's roles instead of women's.  Cornwell, a master of historical fiction, has done his research and demonstrates once again why he is justly acclaimed.

Click HERE to read the review from the UK Express.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Adventures in Historyland.com

Click HERE to read what is actually known about William Shakespeare's siblings, including his younger brother Richard, from Shakespeare-online.com.

The Flame Bearer by Bernard Cornwell

The Flame Bearer:  Novel by Bernard Cornwell --- 284 pages

The tenth volume in Cornwell's Saxon Tales series, continues to interweave the ninth and tenth century history of how the Saxons under Alfred the Great and his successors drove out the Dane and Norse invaders and united all the petty kingdoms of Britain into one united Christian Englaland, with the imagined tale of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the fierce pagan warlord pledged in an uneasy fealty to Alfred, whose victories made Alfred's dream a reality.

Alfred's son Edward now rules Wesses and East Anglia, his daughter AEthelflaed rules Mercia. The Saxon's are now eyeing Northumbria, where Uhtred's Danish son-in-law Sigtryggr rules from his stronghold in the old Roman city of Eoferic (York).  And Uhtred, after years of serving the dreams and ambitions of others, is preparing at long last to follow his own dream and win back Bebbanburg, the great sea hold of Northumbria, that is his, by right of blood and birth.

Bebbanburg was stolen from Uhtred when his father died and his uncle, his father's brother, usurped his place. His uncle wanted Uhtred dead and tried more than once to kill him. Now the usurper's son, Uhtred's cousin, sits in Bebbanburg. This crucial fortress, almost impregnable on its high rock overlooking the North Sea, commands all that section of the coast, and the lands around it, including the sacred island of Lindesfarena.

If Uhtred can claim his brithright and win back Bebbanburg, he will have the power to provide sanctuary for his daughter and her Danish husband, and all those who follow the old gods, when inevitably, the Saxons reconquer Northumbria.  He can hold the north for the Saxons against the predatory Scots king Constantin, who would like to establish the old Roman wall south of Bebbanburg as the boundary between Alba and Northumbria.  If he can take Bebbanburg, he can reclaim his patrimony for himself and his son and his son's sons. He can keep his promise to AEthelflaed, to protect her daughter after she is gone; and to protect Edward's inconvenient eldest son AEthelstan from Edward's conniving queen and her powerful clan.

Uhtred will need all the skills and all the cunning of a lifetime of warfare, and all the favors he can wring from gods old and the new, and from cold-hearted Fate, to make his dream a reality.

ɯƴrd bið ful ãræd.

Click HERE to read a review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read a feature story from the York Press about Cornwell and the inspiration for The Saxon Tales.

Warriors of the Storm by Bernard Cornwell

Warriors of the Storm: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell (Saxon Tales Book Nine), (The Last Kingdom Book Nine) --- 298 pages

Bernard Cornwell's fictional take on the history of Anglo Saxon Britain and the efforts of Alfred the Great and his descendents to create a united Britain out of the quareelsome fiefdoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and finally, Northumbria. Cornwell continues his tale of the fictional warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a follower of the pagan gods unwilllingly sworn to the service of Alfred, and now Alfred's daughter AEthelflaed, who rules Mercia with the support of Uhtred's sword after the death of her husband.

But the peace Aethelflaed and Uhtred have achieved is tenuous at best, with Danish warriors just across the border in Northumbria, and the Norse warrior Ragnall Iverson abandoning his holdings in Ireland to seek a greater kingdom in Britain. Accompanied by an Irish warband, and recruiting more warriors in Northumbria, Ragnall can field a formidable army, while Uhtred tries to convince Aethelflaed and her brother Edward, King of Wessex and East Anglia, that they can no longer wait to strike the Danes in Northumbria.

When Uhtred discovers that his own daughter, married to Ragnall's brother Sigtryggr, is at risk in this savage game of swords and crowns, he must find a way to uphold his oaths of fealty to Aetheflaed at the same time he is disobeying her commands, to destroy Ragnall and preserve his daughter --- and to grasp what may be his last chance to wrest back the heritage that was stolen from him so many years ago.

A fine addition to the series, and not yet the final appearance of Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

Click HERE to read the Kirkus Review of Warriors of the Storm.

The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

The Pagan Lord: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell --- 299 pages

The seventh volume in Cornwell's Warrior Chronicles/Saxon Tales series about Alfred the Great and his successors and the bloody forging of England out of tribal Britain in the ninth and tenth centuries, as witnessed by the Saxon warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

At the beginning of the tenth century, Alfred is dead and his son Edward is king of Wessex.  The land has endured an uneasy peace for ten years, but as Uhtred cynically remarks, all the talk of peace only convinces him to practice his shield wall. Edward is hedged about by ambitious vassals, the least trustworthy of which is his brother-in-law, Aethelred of Mercia; the Danish jarls Cnut Ranulfson and Sigurd Thorrson, who control Northumbria and East Anglia; the wild Welsh in the west and the even wilder Scots in the far north. If this is peace, says Uhtred, then give him war.

The Saxons under Alfred became Christians, but the Danes (with a few exceptions) still worshipped the old gods of the North. Uhtred is Saxon, but when his uncle usurped his heritage, the great fort of Bebbanburg, and sold Uhtred into slavery, it was Danes who rescued him and raised him. So Uhtred turned his back on the "nailed god" who had failed him and put his faith (such as it was) in the old gods. Ironically it is the pagan Uhtred whose fealty to Alfred and to Alfred's son never wavers, and for his loyalty he is anathema to the Christian priests who advise the king and urge the extermination of every man, woman and child who refuses to submit to the Church.

Now Uhtred, once again banished from the king's favor, leads his small band of loyal warriors in a daring attempt to retake Bebbanburg. Although the attempt fails, Uhtred manages to kill his uncle and take hostage the wife and son of his cousin. In the course of this attempt he stumbles upon a devious plot to attack Wessex and its ally Mercia. For the sake of his oath and his love for Edward's sister Aethelflaed, Uhtred sends a warning to the king, and throws his own small force into the path of the Danish battle horde in a desperate gamble to gain enough time for Edward and Aethelred to join forces and ride to meet the Danish threat at the ford of the River Tame at Teotanheale --- as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the year A.D.910.

Click HERE to read an interview with author Bernard Cornwell discussing The Pagan Lord.

Click HERE to watch a BBC documentary about Alfred the Great.

Click HERE to listen to an interview with Bernard Cornwell from the National Review.com.

If you'd like to read the entire series The Warrior Chronicles/Saxon Tales here are the titles to date in order:

The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, and The Pagan Lord. 

1356: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell

1356: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell --- 416 pages

After a hiatus of several years, Cornwell has returned with a fourth novel about the adventures of Thomas of Hookton, an English archer in service to the Earl of Northhampton during the Hundred Years War of England and France.

The story picks up ten years after the conclusion of the Grail Quest, when Thomas finally located the true Grail, hidden in plain sight where his father had left it. To prevent it from falling into the hands of scheming men, Thomas threw the Grail into the sea, where it would be safe forever.

It is now 1355, and the forces of the Black Prince are driving a path of desolation through the southwest of France. While English forces overrun the vulnerable town of Carcasonne, another of Christendom's fabled relics is removed from the town for safekeeping. The cursed Sword of St. Peter again draws the covetous interest of powerful and unscrupulous men.

Thomas still holds the keep of Castellon d'Arbizon for the Earl, because it is a convenient stronghold for the mercenary troop Thomas leads on forays against the French. The Black Prince holds Gascony for his father King Edward III, and presses the English claim to the throne of France. When rumor of the Sword of St. Peter reaches the English camp, Thomas is called on again to search for the relic.

He and his wife Genevieve and their son Hugh ride out on the trail of the Sword, and once more face the machinations of Cardinal Bessieres, the powerful and corrupt Papal Legate, who is also seeking the Sword.  Meanwhile, the Black Prince and his army are confronted by the might of France and forced to retreat. Not far from the town of Poitiers, the Prince must decide whether to continue the retreat or risk engaging  French forces that greatly outnumber his own. And the French have another advantage: the Cardinal has brought the Sword to the battleground, and has promised King Jean that it will make him invincible.

The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell

The Archer's Tale: The Grail Quest Series, Volume I by Bernard Cornwell --- 374 pages

I'm a big fan of Cornwell's historic fiction. Much of his work focuses on English history, particularly important battles and military campaigns. His Richard Sharpe series, for example, focuses on the early 19th century campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars. It was made into a very popular BBC/PBS television series starring Sean Bean, and is probably his best known series.

Somewhere along the line I missed this particular series, The Grail Quest, that tells of the adventures of one Thomas of Hookton, an archer in the English-French wars of the fourteenth century that we know as The Hundred Years' War, when the Anglo-Norman kings pursued their hereditary rights to French fiefdoms to claim the crown of France. This was the century of the ascendancy of the English longbow as a weapon of war. Beginning with the siege of La Roche-Derrien in Brittany, The Archer's Tale marches to the sack of Caen in Normandy, and concludes with the Battle of Crecy, where the English longbows triumphed over the much larger French army.

But in addition to the battles, the book also looks at the beliefs and superstitions of the time, in particular, the legend of the Grail and the power of the Inquisition. Thomas learns that the sea raid that destroyed Hookton and killed his father was no random attack. And now a mysterious warrior called the Harlequin is stalking Thomas. Why? What treasure does the Harlequin seek and why does he think Thomas knows where it lies hidden?

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell --- 320 pages

Sixth volume in The Saxon Tales Series about Alfred the Great's forging of England out of the maelstrom of tribal factions in ninth century Britain. No one writes this kind of historical fiction with more aplomb than Bernard Cornwell.  In this series he creates a tale about his own remote ancestor, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and inserts him into the fabric of English history to flesh out the bare bones of what historians can tell about Alfred's reign.

Saxon born but raised by Danish raiders when his uncle usurps his place as the lord of Bebbanburg Keep in remote Northumbria, Uhtred survives by his warrior skills, worships the old gods of the North, and nurses one burning ambition: to avenge his father's death and regain Bebbanburg. To gain the men and treasure to achieve his goal, Uhtred becomes the reluctant leige man of the Christian Alfred, who needs a warrior to lead his forces and assert his claim to the kingship of Wessex and Mercia. Alfred is beset with tribal rivalries, while Danish raiders sweep down from the north in search of plunder, slaves and land. Yet Alfred too has a dream: he seeks to unify all the Saxon tribes into one Christian kingdom of Angleterre --- England.

In this volume, Alfred is dying, his dream of a united England slipping from his grasp. His son and chosen successor, Edward, young and untried, needs an experienced war leader he can trust. But he is surrounded by counselors who cannot seem to agree on anything --- except their dislike and distrust of Uhtred. The fragile web of tribal loyalties binding Wessex and Mercia to Alfred's crown is fraying under the pressure of rival claimants, and the Danes, smelling opportunity as power changes hands, come ravening like wolves in winter.

Will Alfred's dream and Uhtred's life survive this lethal knot of divided loyalties and treacherous secrets?

To find out more about Bernard Cornwall's Saxon Tales and other great series, click HERE to go to his web site.