My favorite writer of historical fiction has been Kenneth Roberts ever since I was assigned “Northwest Passage” on summer break from school in 1958. I have read all his books once, many of them twice, and a couple three times. And then last year I was browsing the limited shelves of our Town library and was drawn to “Rebel”, as I was researching a Civil War document at the time. Once that was read, I rushed back to take out their only other copy of your Civil War works, and then got onto Interlibrary loan for the rest… and then the Saxon books, and just finished Redcoat last month (wish there were more of that era). I was purposefully avoiding the Sharpe books because I felt the era was not of interest. But taking my granddaughter into the tiny library the other day, and casting about for ANYTHING to read, found the only book of yours they had on the shelf that I had not read was “Sharp’s Trafalgar”. So I figured, what the heck… one book can’t kill me. Read that and I just finished clicking out a interlibrary loan for the first two Sharpe books, and intend to read right through them all! Need I say more? And as hard as this is to admit, for I have held Kenneth Roberts at the top of my list for half a century, I think he has slipped to Number Two. Enough said. Now stop reading these emails and get writing. Philip Lord