From Bernard Cornwell, the New York Times bestselling author whom the Washington Post calls "perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today," comes a saga of blood, rage, fidelity, and betrayal. In the ninth and tenth centuries, King Alfred and his heirs fought to secure the survival of the last outpost of Anglo-Saxon culture by battling the ferocious Vikings, whose invading warriors had already captured and occupied three of England's four kingdoms.

In A.D. 866, Uhtred, a boy of ten and the son of a nobleman, is captured in the same battle that leaves his father dead. His captor is the Earl Ragnar, a Danish chieftain, who raises the boy as his own, teaching him the Viking ways of war. As a young man expected to partake in raids and bloody massacres of the English, he grapples with divided loyalties, torn between Ragnar, the warrior he loves like a father, and Alfred, whose piety and introspection leave him cold. It takes a terrible slaughter and the unexpected joys of marriage for Uhtred to discover his true allegiance - and to rise to his greatest challenge.

Uhtred, an English nobleman's son, is raised by Danish chieftain Ragnar after being captured in battle. He learns the ways of the Danes and bonds with Ragnar. Then a turn in battle forces Uhtred to decide between the two sides of himself. The story is full of bloody action, yet narrator Jamie Glover keeps the emphasis on Uhtred's struggles with conflicting loyalties, shaping the characters to show both their sympathetic and violent natures. Narrating as Uhtred, Glover brings alive both the boy and the wiser man, foreshadowing without giving too much away and showing the war through the eyes of a character who sees the views of both sides. The novel might be too bloody for some, but its take on loyalty and its historical detail are fascinating. J.A.S. 2006 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

 

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
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