Hello I just finished Death of Kings and have to say its now my favorite of the Uhtred books so far, taking the place of Lords of the North, which up until now was my favorite. This is the first of the Uhtred books where I didn’t have the urge to smack Uhtred across the head for being too much a self indulged, arrogant pain in the a55. I guess its because my first Saxon love is Derfel, and he and Uhtred are so different. Then again Uhtred never had Arthur to admire, and Merlin to take him down a peg, all he had was Alfred who helped make him even more of a arrogant sod by being so damned pious. But don’t get me wrong, I do love a good Uhtred book. It’s part of the charm and appeal to me when I read those books, to seethe with frustration, and want to give both Uhtred and Alfred, a clock around the ears. Death of Kings kept me guessing and wondering, and I loved that, not to mention this new Priest Cuthbert who reminds me of someone I knew in high school. I would also like to say that I take great offence, on your behalf, when some pious little 5h1t calls your books anti-Christian, especially when some of the most lovely and adored characters of your books were Christian. Sure there are some real villains amongst the cloth, but so there were amongst the Pagans. Grand thing about your books is the humanity, in all its horror and beauty. Not a hint of pretension unless it be from the mouth of a character who’s will is their own. Keep up the good work. I had a question. I do a bit of writing from time to time for fun, and I enjoy coming up with new ways for characters to kill and maim each other, do you find the same thing enjoyable? Finding new and imaginary ways for one character to do another character in?. Are there any areas of history, in which a modern day historian has spoken about, which you have found to be just an over-cherry-picked under researched bunch of rubbish, concocted in an attempt to strengthen their theory?. Because I have recently found some nonsense of the very type, such as a modern thought on the Saxon Invasion of Britain as having been just a fashion change, and was curious if you had had run into such nonsense yourself? Regards Damien Silson.