Dear Mr. Cornwell, I’m two thirds of the way through SWORD SONG, and I wanted to write to tell you how very much I’m enjoying the experience of it! I’m a huge fan of your work (earlier favourites including the Arthur trilogy, STONEHENGE, and the Grail Quest series), and this current series is just as thoroughly engrossing and well-written and compelling as everything else of yours. The amount of research you must do is quite impressive as well! I’m a university English professor with a particular interest in early British history, myths and legends and fairy tales, and fantasy lit. I particularly love anything Norse or Celtic. As it happens, I’ve just finished teaching BEOWULF, and it was a happy coincidence of timing that I was reading SWORD SONG at the same time! Could not have been more perfect. Another thing: I happen to be pagan, so I especially enjoy the slant on early Christianity and how really repressive and damaging it was, in so many ways– and how the old ways and spirituality made so much more sense. Seems a shame that two of your most compelling characters– Derfel and Uhtred– both wind up forced to profess a belief in Christianity that they do not truly hold. (Of course, Derfel’s situation is far worse than I’m guessing Uhtred’s will be, but still, with all the foreshadowing I’m seeing in SWORD SONG, it doesn’t look like things end all that happily for Uhtred either. I’m expecting he’ll lose his beloved Gisela in childbirth and then Alfred will force him, years hence perhaps, to marry the pious shrew of a Christian woman he keeps referring to as his present wife.) You’ve also got me pondering how Alfred’s daughter will figure in things to come. I’ve been wondering since THE LORDS OF THE NORTH whether Uhtred will wind up marrying her years from now as well! One last thing– I write, and I want to say that your work is truly an inspiration to me as a model of clean, crisp, incisive prose that is marvelously descriptive and tremendously powerful. I get the sense that you self-edit mercilessly! The results speak for themselves. Thank you for your wonderful books! Renee Tone