Good Morning Bernard
I started with Sharp, many years ago, and I’ve read just about all of your books over the years. My favourite series remains the Arthurian trilogy. The characters are superbly drawn and develops, and there’s a magic – not in the sorcery sense – about the stories that I haven’t found in the others. That’s just a personal point of view, of course.
A number of people have asked if you intend to revisit some of the books, and explain what happened to the main characters (William Frederickson, Jane, Antonia, Harper and Sharp himself, just to give a few examples). It’s a tempting idea, and would satisfy my own curiosity, but real history is untidy. Many people simply fade out of the record, leaving tantalising glimpses and opportunities for speculation. I don’t know, perhaps it’s best to let your readers use their own imagination? For all we “know” Jane may have married a wealthy aristocrat, bewitched by her looks and willing to overlook the illegitimate child, or become his mistress; or she could have died penniless and diseased on the London streets……..rejected by everyone in respectable society. I might even be able to write this myself, using another character and without infringing your copyright of course!
The uncertainties of history fit well with Ragnar’s death in The Pagan Lord. He was Uhtred’s friend and brother, they were very close and shared many dangers, but few details of his death – beyond ill health – are given. That’s how most people died. Uhtred only learns of it some time later and that’s also very real for a period when communications were slow and unreliable.
Martyn Kerr