I read your article in last week’s Sunday Times magazine with interest.I just wanted to say that having spent the last 30 years as Head of English and Communication in a large college of Further Education,I enjoy reading your stories far more than some of those almost unreadable literature prize winners where plot takes second place to dry,dreary fiction.I have had to teach some of them for examinations and very few have been enjoyed by me or my students.Your Azincourt was well received by classes of young men alongside Henry V which they all enjoyed.I have loved all of your Sharpe novels especially but my real favourites have been the Saxon stories.I think that Death of Kings is superb. All of your work is well researched and extremely well written and I always look forward to each new one, especially now that I have retired and no longer have to teach dreary prize winners,some of which have been so boring.Thank you for your wonderful imagination and your meticulous research, yours sincerely, Valerie Grant.