The first in a new series published by Preface, Sworn. The first in a series set in the turbulent and bloody years following 1066, it explores the aftermath of the Battle of Hastings, as seen through the eyes of one of the Norman conquerors, an ambitious and oath-sworn knight named Tancred. Verdict: Those who enjoy Bernard Cornwell’s books will also revel in the details and derring-do of Aitcheson’s view from the invader’s side. Sworn Sword is the debut novel by James Aitcheson. And who is the woman in the convent? The author mixes history and fiction together well, the characters are engaging, and there is plenty of battlefield excitement. But moving the women is not all: there is also a secret message to deliver, with some treachery mixed in. There another earl commissions him to lead his wife and daughter to safety before the rebels lay siege to that fortress. Durham is quickly taken, Tancred wounded, and he recovers in York. Tancred a Dinant, a knight in service to a Norman Earl, is on patrol near Durham, when the locals revolt and storm the city. In the depths of winter, 2000 Normans march. In this novel, the first in a proposed series, and set not quite three years after the monumental battle, the victorious Normans are still loathed by the native English. Less than three years have passed since Hastings and the death of the usurper, Harold Godwineson. History may favor the victors, but in the case of the Norman Conquest, we tend to remember the English, who lost at Hastings in 1066. Keith McCoy, Somerset County Library System
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