The first book in a brand new series, 'The Last Kingdom' is set in England during the reign of King Alfred.
Uhtred is English. Born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria, at ten he is orphaned, captured and adopted by a Dane. Although taught the Viking ways, his fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.
Uhtred grows up against a background of conflict - between the English and the Danes, and Christianity and paganism. Uncertain of his loyalties, a slaughter one winter's 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 cements his ties to the West Saxon cause, but when his wife and child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion, Uhtred must face the greatest of the Viking chieftains. In that battle beside the sea, in the horror of the shield-wall, he discovers his true allegiance.
'The Last Kingdom', like most of Bernard Cornwell's books, is firmly rooted in history. It is the first novel in a series about Alfred the Great and his descendants. And of their enemies, Viking warriors like Ivar the Boneless and his feared brother, Ubba. Against their lives Bernard Cornwell has woven a story of divided loyalties, reluctant love and desperate heroism. In Uhtred, he has created one of his most interesting and heroic characters, and in 'The Last Kingdom' one of his most powerful and passionate novels.
