11 August 2006

Book Log 2006 # 34: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell

Best known for a series of historical novels featuring British soldier Richard Sharpe, this is this first book in a trilogy focused on King Alfred the Great and how he saved England from conquest by the Danes.

Even so, Alfred barely shows up in the first book. The main character is a Northumbrian who spends his time bouncing between the Danish and English camps after his father is killed and he is captured by the Danes. Raised among them, he's stuck between camps, as he's not truly a Dane, and the English distrust him for his Danish ways.

It's solid historical fiction, and great reading for the commute - as long as your train ride doesn't end before a climactic battle.

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