Dear Mr Cornwell, thank you very much for your novels on Uhtred and Alfred, I read these over and over again. The descriptive narrative and passages are very exciting and vivid. The historical elements to the books make them very real. I live in the UK and have seen Saxon buildings still today 1200 years later – we have a church in our village built in 950, and another church close by built in 850, with Saxon stone work and carvings. Your books bring this history back to life. The village I live in fact derives its name from Knut, the Danish king. As a film these books would break the book office. Having read these many times the only thing I would recommend is having the key characters being a bit more personal with each other to build a sense of kinship which would bind one novel to the next. For example Uhtred saved Alfreds son from death at the expense of his son. Alfred should be compassionate about this or dismissive/arrogant even, it just seems to be an event in the book with no emotional consequences – I realise Alfred is not aware of the cost – but feel you could bond your characters more with emotional passages and this would create relationships would build personas which create extra binding to the reader. In any case its a suggestion. I think the books are great, I just wish I had the guts, time and talent to write such exciting novels. Will