Dear Mr Cornwell,

I am on book 3 of The Last Kingdom series (after a recommendation from James Dellingpole)  There was a discussion going on his chat (which is nominally Christian) about whether Uhtred was fashionably anti Christian or not. Someone commented that the Christian characters are like modern day snivelling civil servants.  I don’t think i quite agree and while as a Christian i don’t quite feel i’m in the same safe pair of hands that i am reading say CS Lewis or Tolkein i accept that the protagonist narrator is a pagan and accept seeing the world through his eyes and here and there the Christians are seen in a ‘redeeming’ light.  Overall i enjoy the books and feel i have got over my slight hestiancy over whether i should be letting your narrative voice into my inner being !  I hope that doens’t sound precious but reading for me can be intimate and i am sensitive to books that are (especially today) filled with politically correct virtue signalling and some of this is often (for example) pro Islam and anti Christian – eg films and books about the crusades.  I do NOT think you are guilty of this and i am enjoying the books immensely.  However i am led to assume that you are substantially more sympathetic to the pagan view point.  I hope you are self critical enough to know that often modern ideas of paganism can be grossly romantic though i don’t think you’re guilty of that as your books seem pretty realistic.  I am curious to know what your response to this would be and i think us Christian sympathtic readers who you have not quite alienated would be interested to know to what extent your writing is a reflection of your world view or to what extent you feel they are purely written from the perspective of the pagan Uhtred.  But i actually meant to just ask you for some good history books covering the period of the Last Kingdom so i could understand more about this fascinating period.  I live in Northumberland so am in the midst of the setting of these books.  3 or 4 really good books covering this period but if possible focusing on Northumberland especially in relation to the followers of St Cuthbert and also how Northumberland and it’s leaders related to the wonderful King Alfred.

Thank you for your time

Dan Ashton

Northumberland