The second installment of Bernard Cornwell's New York Times
bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England,
"like Game of Thrones, but real" (The Observer, London)--the basis for
The Last Kingdom, the hit television series.
This is the exciting--yet little known--story of the making of England
in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great,
his son and grandson defeated the Danish Vikings who had invaded and
occupied three of England's four kingdoms.
At the end of The Last Kingdom, The Danes had been defeated at Cynuit,
but the triumph of the English is not fated to last long. The Danish
Vikings quickly invade and occupy three of England's four kingdoms--and
all that remains of the once proud country is a small piece of
marshland, where Alfred and his family live with a few soldiers and
retainers, including Uhtred, the dispossessed English nobleman who was
raised by the Danes. Uhtred has always been a Dane at heart, and has
always believed that given the chance, he would fight for the men who
raised him and taught him the Viking ways. But when Iseult, a powerful
sorceress, enters Uhtred's life, he is forced to consider feelings he's
never confronted before--and Uhtred discovers, in his moment of greatest
peril, a new-found loyalty and love for his native country and ruler.
