Sir,

I have read all your Last Kingdom books and greatly enjoyed them. I’m an Armor officer in the US Army and love the warrior culture that you paint in your books. I’m writing because I have a theory about the location of the “Egbert’s Stone”:

“And again in the seventh week after Easter he [King Alfred] rode to Egbert’s Stone, which is in the eastern part of the forest called Selwood–in Latin “Sylva Magna,” in Welsh “Coit Maur”–and there met him there all the dwellers about the districts of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire…”

Could this be Stonehenge? First: It seems like a monument sufficiently impressive to be worthy of naming after a West Saxon king, and it looks like a crown. Second: it would be a logical meeting-place, because people from different shires would know where it was, and because it is close to the tri-section of these three shires.

I know I’m not supposed to give you ideas for a book, so I’ll be extremely vague. I love your treatment of the Anglo-Saxon era. Maybe some books about the pagan Anglo-Saxons before Christianity infected England? Or narrated by the original invaders in the 400s? That would be great.

Thanks so much for your time,

Scott Dragland