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.

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 Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwall

The Empty Throne: A Novel by Bernard Cornwall --- 296 pages

The eighth book in Cornwall's Saxon Tales series continues to look at Anglo-Saxon Britain through the eyes of the pagan lord Uhtred of  Bebbanburg, warlord in the service of Alfred of Wessex and his dream of a united Saxon kingdom of Englaland.

Alfred is now dead and his son Edward rules Wessex, while his daughter AEthelflaed was wed to AEthelred of Mercia to secure the alliance of Mercia to Wessex. While Edward is an indolent king, content to allow his powerful father-in-law, AEthelhelm, to rule in his name, AEthelflaed has endeared herself to her Mercian subjects by her piety, her canny leadership, and her success in fending off Viking raiders. In this last AEthelflaed is ably assisted by Uhtred, the leader of her warriors and her sometime lover.

Now AEthelflaed's dispised husband, AEthelred, is dying with no direct male heir to succeed him, Ambitious men are vying for his throne, ignoring the Viking threat hanging over Mercia. And Uhtred, suffering from a wound that refuses to heal, seeks to persuade the Mercian witan to do the unthinkable and accept AEthelflaed --- a woman! --- as their ruler.

Historical fiction with the blood and mud immediacy that makes Cornwall of master of the genre. The same British television company that produces Downton Abbey is now filming Cornwall's The Last Kingdom, the first book of the Saxon Tales.  Let's hope it's as good as  the television series based on Cornwall's Richard Sharpe, which catapulted Sean Bean to fame and fortune in the 1990s as the British rifleman who against all odds rises through the ranks during the Napoleonic Wars.

Click HERE to watch the trailer for The Empty Throne.

Click HERE to read the Kirkus review.