Dear Bernard

I would like to thank you for all your wonderful historical fictions. It goes without saying the plots are always thrilling whether you manipulate the historical time line or just make them up or stick to the facts like Sharpe’s Waterloo. However for me your beautiful descriptions of the incidentals, food, smells , description of landscape, streets, clothing or the grinding poverty are the foundations of your novels. Your ability to allow figures to be people of their time not ours but to be able to allow us to understand their values have not essentially changed from ours is the very heart of your novels. People regardless of  what age they were born in or what part of the world or what race all share the same strengths and weaknesses , love ,greed, selfishness , compassion and so on . This shines through your novels. I also enjoy your religious references and often embedding this into your novels. Recognising  the absurd and the inspiring in all religions. The devout and kindly followers and the corrupting or fanatical believers. Thank you so much for all the amazing hard work you must put into your work from the research to the prose. I hope you never grow weary from your work. Your books bring me wonderful pleasure and I love reading them many times over such fantastic value for money.

Thank you

Brendan