The Pagan Lord

Title: The Pagan Lord

Author: Bernard Cornwell

Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2013
Pages: 303
Series: The Last Kingdom/ The Saxon Stories #7
Genre: Historical Fiction

Reading Time: 20 - 28 June

Binding: Kindle
Goodreads

Stars:
★★★★★

Blurb:

 Uhtred - sword of the Saxons, bane of the Vikings - has been declared outcast.

 Peace in Britain had given Uhtred time to cause trouble - for himself. Branded a pagan abomination by the church, he sails north. For, despite suspecting that Viking leader Cnut Longsword will attack the Saxons again, Uhtred is heading for Bebbanburg, fearing that if he does not act now he will never reclaim his stolen birthright.

 Yet Uhtred's fate is bound to the Saxons. To Aethelflaed, bright lady of Mercia and to a dead king's dream of England. For great battles must still be fought - and no man is better at that than Uhtred.

 Uhtred of Bebbanburg's mind is as sharp as his sword. A thorn in the side of priests and nobles who shape his fate, this Saxon raised by Vikings is torn between the life he loves and those he has sworn to serve.

Review:

 Let me begin by acknowledging that my reading speed slowed down a lot on this one. No fault of the book, I found this one a step up on pace and excitement from Death of Kings. I simply had last week off to read as much as I wanted and when I went back to work this week everything that could possibly go wrong did. I'll do better next week and get my reading rhythm back!

 What an opening, peace has had it's time and now Uhtred's ready to get himself in a bit of trouble. He does it with style too, Uhtred is seen as an old man, an old warrior in his time now and his children are grown. Not all in to a life that Uhtred would approve of and thus Uhtred gives the church yet another reason to call for his blood.

 So where's Uhtred going to go? Only the place we've been waiting for him to go since the beginning. BEBBANBURG, BABY! It's all action. It's all tense. What a ride.

 Avoiding the results of that, Uhtred feels he's called back South as the Danes begin to wreak havoc, Aethelflaed calling him back to his duties, more in spirit than orders. Uhtred truly does love her. Here comes another game of strategy, tricks and bluffs showing us how Uhtred's mind has been honed by war. All for the Saxons that continue to resent him. Old enemies come back to the front in this book, it's an entertaining one.

 A final note in comparison to how Netflix has adapted this one. Two deaths are mentioned in this book, big deaths that are only given a short page. That's likely more accurate to the time but Netflix changes these deaths massively, which explains my confusion of the changed events from the last book. The series did these deaths better.