The Last Kingdom is set in the England of the ninth and tenth centuries.

These were the years when the Danish Vikings had invaded and occupied three of England's four kingdoms, and when King Alfred, his son and grandson fought back and won the freedom of the country again.

The story is seen through the eyes of Uhtred, a dispossessed English nobleman. Captured as a child and raised by the Danes, he now finds his allegiances divided. But the one thing he knows is that he wants to recover his father's land, the fort by the wild northern sea that we now know as Bamburgh.

Bernard Cornwell is a master of historical fiction and this new series looking with a fresh light at Alfred the Great, his kingdom and his legacy will be as outstanding and as popular as the Grail Quest and the Warlord Chronicles.