The master of historical fiction presents the iconic story of King Alfred and the making of a nation. As the ninth century wanes, England appears about to be plunged into chaos once more. For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices. King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north. Uhtred's loyalty - and his vows - were to Alfred, not to his son, and despite his long years of service to Alfred, he is still not committed to the Saxon cause. His own desire is to reclaim his long lost lands and castle to the north. But the challenge to him, as the king's warrior, is that he knows that he will either be the means of making Alfred's dream of a united and Christian England come to pass or be responsible for condemning it to oblivion. This novel is a dramatic story of the power of tribal commitment and the terrible difficulties of divided loyalties. This is the making of England magnificently brought to life.

Go with God and Fight Like the Devil. A fascinating hero and the pursuit of a sword with mythical power - this is the remarkable new novel by Britain’s master storyteller, which culminates at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Thomas of Hookton, a veteran of Crecy and many other battles, is the leader of a mercenary company of bowmen and men-at-arms who ravage the countryside east of Gascony. Edward, Prince of Wales, later to be known as the Black Prince, is assembling an army to fight the French once more but before Thomas can join, he must fulfil an urgent task. La Malice, a sword of mythical power guaranteeing victory to its owner, is thought to be concealed somewhere near Poitiers. With signs that a battle between the English and the French is looming others are seeking the treasure too, and some – French, Scots and even English – are pursuing their private agendas against Thomas. But all – Thomas of Hookton, his enemies and friends and the fate of La Malice – become swept up in the extraordinary confrontation that follows, as the large French army faces the heavily outnumbered English in battle.

The fourth installment of Bernard Cornwell’s New York Times bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, “like Game of Thrones, but real” (The Observer, London)—the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit television series. The year is 885, and England is at peace, divided between the Danish kingdom to the north and the Saxon kingdom of Wessex in the south. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord—warrior by instinct, Viking by nature—has finally settled down. He has land, a wife and two children, and a duty given to him by King Alfred to hold the frontier on the Thames. But then trouble stirs: a dead man has risen, and new Vikings have arrived to occupy the decayed Roman city of London. Their dream is to conquer Wessex, and to do it they need Uhtred’s help. Alfred has other ideas. He wants Uhtred to expel the Viking raiders from London. Uhtred must weigh his oath to the king against the dangerous turning tide of shifting allegiances and deadly power struggles. And other storm clouds are gathering: Alfred’s daughter is newly married, but by a cruel twist of fate, her very existence now threatens Alfred’s kingdom. It is Uhtred—half Saxon, half Dane—whose uncertain loyalties must now decide England’s future. Sword Song is Cornwell’s finest work yet—vivid with period detail, this breathtaking adventure throroughly reimagines one of the most fascinating tales in all of history—the birth of England—and breathes life into the brilliant king who made it possible: Alfred the Great.

In muddy waters, even heroes drown Trouble at sea for an ex-war hero ... His father in prison for fraud, his ex-wife bleeding him dry and his spine shattered by a bullet, Falklands war hero Nick Sandman, VC, has no money and no prospects. Only his boat - Sycorax -and his dream of sailing her away from his troubles is keeping him alive. But Sycorax is as crippled as Nick. To rebuild his wrecked and stranded dream, Nick is forced into a devil's bargain with egomaniacal TV star Tony Bannister. Bannister is the owner of Wildtrack, an ocean racer, and he wants Nick to be part of the crew that will sail the ship to victory. Bannister, though, has made some powerful enemies who are out for revenge, leaving Nick caught in the middle. Can he keep Wildtrack and his dreams of escape aboard Sycorax afloat?

It is 1814 and the defeat of Napolean seems imminent - if the well-protected city of Toulouse can be conquered. For Richard Sharpe, the battle turns out to be one of the bloodiest of the Peninsula Wars, and he must draw on his last reserves of strength to lead his troops to victory. But before Sharpe can lay down his sword, he must fight a different sort of battle. Accused of stealing Napolean's personal treasure, Sharpe escapes from a British military court and embarks on the battle of his life - armed only with the unflinching resolve to protect his honor.

Three classic Richard Sharpe adventures.Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805Ensign Richard Sharpe is on his way home from India. He is sailing with the Royal Navy, who are hunting a formidable French warship, the ‘Revenant’, carrying a secret treaty that may prove lethal to the British.Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, newly returned to England, is offered a new job: go to Copenhagen, help deliver a bribe, and stop a war. To him, it seems easy. But the bribe is to stop the Danes allowing the French to possess their battle fleet, big enough to replace every warship lost at Trafalgar.Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809Britains’s forces are retreating towards Corunna during a bitter winter, with Napoleon’s victorious armies in pursuit. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and a detachment of Riflemen are cut off from the rest of the army and surrounded.

Four thousand years ago, a stranger's death at the Old Temple of Ratharryn-and his ominous "gift" of gold-precipitates the building of what for centuries to come will be known as one of mankind's most singular and remarkable achievements. Bernard Cornwell's epic novel Stonehenge catapults us into a powerful and vibrant world of ritual and sacrifice at once timeless and wholly original-a tale of patricide, betrayal, and murder; of bloody brotherly rivalry: and of the never-ending quest for power, wealth, and spiritual fulfillment. Three brothers-deadly rivals-are uneasily united in their quest to create a temple to their gods. There is Lengar, the eldest, a ruthless warrior intent on replacing his father as chief of the tribe of Ratharryn; Camaban, his bastard brother, a sorcerer whose religious fervor inspires the plan for Stonehenge; and Saban, the youngest, through whose expertise the temple will finally be completed. Divided by blood but united-precariously-by a shared vision, the brothers begin erecting their mighty ring of granite, aligning towering stones to the movement of the heavenly bodies, and raising arches to appease and unite their gods. Caught between the zealousness of his ambitious brothers, Saban becomes the true leader of his people, a peacemaker who will live to see the temple built in the name of salvation and regeneration. Bernard Cornwell, long admired for his rousing narrative and meticulous historical imaginings, has here delivered his masterpiece, the most compelling and powerful human drama of its kind since Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and Edward Rutherford's Sarum. His re-creation of civilization as it might have been in 2000 B.C. at once amplifies the mystery of his subject and makes the world of Stonehenge come alive as never before.

'Some battles change nothing. Waterloo changed almost everything.' On the 18th June, 1815 the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days the French army had beaten the British at Quatre-Bras and the Prussians at Ligny. The Allies were in retreat. The blood-soaked battle of Waterloo would become a landmark in European history, to be examined over and again, not least because until the evening of the 18th, the French army was close to prevailing on the battlefield. Now, brought to life by the celebrated novelist Bernard Cornwell, this is the chronicle of the four days leading up to the actual battle and a thrilling hour-by-hour account of that fateful day. In his first work of non-fiction, Cornwell combines his storytelling skills with a meticulously researched history to give a riveting account of every dramatic moment, from Napoleon's escape from Elba to the smoke and gore of the battlefields. Through letters and diaries he also sheds new light on the private thoughts of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, as well as the ordinary officers and soldiers. Published to coincide with the bicentenary in 2015, Waterloo is a tense and gripping story of heroism and tragedy - and of the final battle that determined the fate of Europe.

The third instalment in Bernard Cornwell's King Alfred series, following on from the outstanding previous novels The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman, both of which were top ten bestsellers. The year is 878 and Wessex is free from the Vikings. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord, helped Alfred win that victory, but now he is disgusted by Alfred's lack of generosity and repelled by the king's insistent piety. He flees Wessex, going back north to seek revenge for the killing of his foster father and to rescue his stepsister, captured in the same raid. He needs to find his old enemy, Kjartan, a renegade Danish lord who lurks in the formidable stronghold of Dunholm. Uhtred arrives in the north to discover rebellion, chaos and fear. His only ally is Hild, a West Saxon nun fleeing her calling, and his best hope is his sword, with which he has made a formidable reputation as a warrior. He will need the assistance of other warriors if he is to attack Dunholm and he finds Guthred, a slave who believes he is a king. He takes him across the Pennines to where a desperate alliance of fanatical Christians and beleaguered Danes form a new army to confront the terrible Viking lords who rule Northumbria. 'The Lords of the North' is a powerful story of betrayal, romance and struggle, set in an England of turmoil, upheaval and glory. Uhtred, a Northumbrian raised as a Viking, a man without lands, a warrior without a country, has become a splendid heroic figure.

This is the story of the making of England in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great, his son and grandson defeated the Danish Vikings who had invaded and occupied three of England’s four kingdoms. The story is seen through the eyes of Uhtred, a dispossessed nobleman, who is captured as a child by the Danes and then raised by them so that, by the time the Northmen begin their assault on Wessex (Alfred’s kingdom and the last territory in English hands) Uhtred almost thinks of himself as a Dane. He certainly has no love for Alfred, whom he considers a pious weakling and no match for Viking savagery, yet when Alfred unexpectedly defeats the Danes and the Danes themselves turn on Uhtred, he is finally forced to choose sides. By now he is a young man, in love, trained to fight and ready to take his place in the dreaded shield wall. Above all, though, he wishes to recover his father’s land, the enchanting fort of Bebbanburg by the wild northern sea. This thrilling adventure—based on existing records of Bernard Cornwell’s ancestors—depicts a time when law and order were ripped violently apart by a pagan assault on Christian England, an assault that came very close to destroying England.

Richard Sharpe, the former private in His Majesty's army who now commands a company of riflemen, finds himself fighting his old enemies, the French, in 1811. Sharpe has been sent by Wellington on a mission to Cadiz, now the capital of Spain, to rescue the British ambassador -- who happens to be Wellington's brother -- from a spot of undiplomatic trouble. The city has been blockaded by the French but is supported by the British from the sea. It contains a rare mix of pro- and anti-British citizens, diplomats, courtiers, adventurers, and spies. Sharpe's mission -- complicated, undercover, and political -- turns out to be completely different from the one on which he was sent. It brings him through the besieging enemy army to triumph in the Battle of Barrosa, where the British, deserted by their allies, defeat an overwhelmingly stronger French force.

The first book in Bernard Cornwell's bestselling Grail Quest series. The year is 1342. The English, led by Edward III, are laying waste to the French countryside. The army may be led by the King, but it is the archers, the common men, who are England's secret weapon. The French know them as Harlequins. Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic. Thomas begins a quest that will lead him through fields smeared with the smoke of fires set by the rampaging English, until at last the two armies face each other on a hillside near the village of Crécy.

The next installment of Bernard Cornwell's bestselling series chronicling the epic saga of the making of England, “like Game of Thrones, but real” (Observer, London)—the basis for The Last Kingdom, the hit television series coming to Netflix in Fall 2016 From the day it was stolen from me I had dreamed of recapturing Bebbanburg. The great fort was built on a rock that was almost an island, it was massive, it could only be approached on land by a single narrow track—and it was mine. Britain is in a state of uneasy peace. Northumbria’s Viking ruler, Sigtryggr, and Mercia’s Saxon Queen Aethelflaed have agreed a truce. And so England’s greatest warrior, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, at last has the chance to take back the home his traitorous uncle stole from him so many years ago—and which his scheming cousin still occupies. But fate is inexorable and the enemies Uhtred has made and the oaths he has sworn combine to distract him from his dream of recapturing Bebbanburg. New enemies enter into the fight for England’s kingdoms: the redoubtable Constantin of Scotland seizes an opportunity for conquest and leads his armies south. Britain’s precarious peace threatens to turn into a war of annihilation. But Uhtred is determined that nothing, neither the new enemies nor the old foes who combine against him, will keep him from his birth right. He is the Lord of Bebbanburg, but he will need all the skills he has learned in a lifetime of war to make his dream come true. The latest chapter in Bernard Cornwell’s “violent, absorbing historical saga,” The Flame Bearer confirms Bernard Cornwell’s title as “perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today” (Washington Post).