Dear Mr Cornwell

Forgive me if I sound like a starstruck fan, but I love your books and the Uhtred Series is by far my favourite. I have just finished reading the books up to date for the second time and the still fascinate me.

I feel I can really relate to Uhtred, being born and bred in Northumberland and now living in Devon I get a sense of where the character is coming from being away from his home and living among strange people who don’t understand him.
As a child I used to visit Bamburg Castle, Seahouses and Holy Island (Lindisfarne) every summer with my family and your description of it in your novels is exactly how I remember it.

However, I do have 1 very negative piece of criticism. I don’t mean to sound rude or disrespectful can you please explain it to me how in many of your novel series you characters undergo immense  personality changes?
Reading The Last Kingdom and its sequel I felt that you had caught the northern spirit perfectly, Uhtred is a care free, arrogant and ruthless killer. However as your series of books develop Uhtred seems to become more gentle and kind and soppy I fully understand many things can alter a person’s behaviour such as environment, age and the people around them but it is almost as if you are writing about a complete different character. I feel this is the same pattern in many of your books such as the Warlord Novels, Sharpe and Azincourt these are supposed to be ruthless warriors living in desperate and ruthless times.

Although there seems to be 1 exception to this pattern, Thomas of Hookton Novels  the main character begins unlike the others as gentle and naive but by the 1356 Novel he is merciless and cruel but I do accept that torture and war could have caused this.

I am sorry if I seemed to have ranted but              I am curious as to why all your characters behaviour and attitudes all seem to become the opposite of what they started out as?

Kind Regards

Kurt Beck