Cornwell, Bernard "The Last Kingdom"

Cornwell, Bernard "The Last Kingdom" (The Saxon Stories #1) - 2004

I love historical fiction. And this one is based on the real history of England. So, someone suggested I should read a book by this author. My husband loves him and we had this book at home, so I gave it a try.

While I liked the story of Uthred and his contemporaries, there was too much about fighting in the story and less about the "real life". Maybe, because there were few women - and even fewer stories about them - in the book. But this was not for me. I doubt I will read more about "The Last Kingdom", at least not in this series.

From the back cover:

"Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at ten, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.

The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up. He is left uncertain of his loyalties but a slaughter in a winter dawn propels him to the English side and he will become a man just as the Danes launch their fiercest attack yet on Alfred's kingdom. Marriage ties him further still to the West Saxon cause but when his wife and child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion, Uhtred is driven to face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea. There, in the horror of the shield-wall, he discovers his true allegiance."