Dear Mr Cornwell I’ve never emailed an author before, but you seem to be quite patient with your readership! I happened on your Sharpe stories earlier this year when the TV series was re-run on one of the digital channels and I was looking for something other than reality TV to watch. I saw a couple and then discovered the channel was running the complete series over one weekend. I set the DVD recorder, sent my husband to visit his brother and laid in a store of sandwiches! Having watched the whole lot, I then went off to my local Waterstones the following weekend and bought the entire series of Sharpe novels. Fortunately I’ve had a lot of boring train and plane journeys over the last few months and this allowed me to read the novels in order and even to regret reaching my destination. I’m devastated to find that you aren’t currently writing another – I’ve had to turn to Starbuck instead, but don’t feel as comfortable with him. Please turn your attention back to Richard Sharpe soon – I’m not struck on your Saxon, Arthur or Grail Quest books. As someone else said, please could you include Sweet William again, there’s unfinished business between him and Sharpe, and Patrick Harper must surely be able to mediate a reconciliation. I know you said in one of your introductions that Antonia lives happily ever after – could her father get a glimpse into that sometime please? He must sometimes wonder in the dark of the night. Please don’t do what Sharpe’s Challenge did and bump off Lucille – Sharpe deserves better than that and his female admirers are mostly content to share him with his French lady – after all we’ve already shared him with 2 wives. Can I also say another Nate Starbuck tale is overdue. I can’t bear to think of him suffering that wound all this time! I also want to know more about Patrick Lassan – how did his sister manage to marry into the aristocracy if Sharpe didn’t restore his fortune? Sorry about the length of this, once I got the bit between my teeth there seemed to be a lot to say and I can hardly believe that these people aren’t real. Merry Christmas and a Guid New Year to you and yours. More power to your pen!