Book Review - The Last Kingdom

I first discovered Bernard Cornwell a few years back when I picked up his bookStonehenge, 2000 B.C.: A Novel. That was a great piece of historical fiction on the building of Stonehenge and was filled with plenty of sex, violence and magic as well as some memorable characters. He does a great job of weaving his fictional characters in and out of the exploits of historical figures and he clearly does a lot of homework because there's a lot of cool facts in his books.

Cornwell's latest, The Last Kingdom, is the tale of the fictional Uhtred, in the late 800s as the Danes are invading what is now England. Uhtred is captured by the Danes as a young boy, is raised as one of them but eventually fights against them under the command of King Alfred the Great. Great story...the only bummer is I got to the end and realized I'll have to wait for the next book for the story to continue.

Big thumbs up on this one and, if you're interested in historical fiction, I'd recommend Cornwell's Grail Quest Series.

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