Death of Kings

I’ve just completed Death of Kings, the most recent novel in Bernard Cornwell’s series based around the birth of the English nation in the time of Alfred the Great and the Danish/Viking invasions. The hero of the stories is Uhtred of Bebbanburg (modern-day Bamburgh Castle in Northumbria). The plot of this novel essentially revolves around Uhtred marching around Wessex and Mercia fighting Danes and rebel Saxons and builds to a typical Bernard Cornwell conclusion of a massive, crunching battle in which quite a few key characters are killed off in bloody fashion.

Cornwell is a master story-teller. He writes to a formula; as a reader, you know what you’re going to get and Cornwell delivers it brilliantly, every time.