Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom

My first full-length nonfiction book was published by Amberley Books in September 2018. All my novels so far have been set in Mercia and it has always seemed to me that some of the liveliest and most interesting characters hailed from that great kingdom of the midlands.

Here's the blurb:

"Many people know about Wessex, the ‘Last Kingdom’ of the Anglo-Saxons to fall to the Northmen, but another kingdom, Mercia, once enjoyed supremacy over not only Wessex, but all of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. At its zenith Mercia controlled what is now Birmingham and London ‒ and the political, commercial paramountcy of the two today finds echoes in the past.

Those interested in the period will surely have heard of Penda, Offa, and Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians ‒ but remarkably there is no single book that tells their story in its entirety, the story of the great kingdom of the midlands. 

Historically, the records are in two halves, pre- and post-Viking, in the way they have been preserved. Pre-Viking, virtually all the source material was written by the victims, or perceived victims, of Mercian aggression and expansion. Post-Viking, the surviving documents tend to hail from places which were not sacked or burned by the Northmen, particularly from Wessex, the traditional enemy of Mercia. The inclusion of those records here allows for the exploration of Mercia post-924.

Mercia ceased to be a kingdom when Alfred the Great came to power, but its history did not end there. Examining the roles of the great ealdormen in the anti-monastic reaction of the tenth century, through the treachery of Eadric Streona in the eleventh, and the last, brave young earls who made a stand against William the Conqueror, this book shows the important role the Mercians played in the forging of the English nation."

I'm delighted to say that the book hit the #1 spot in its category on Amazon and has been in the Top 5 on more than one occasion since.

It's had some excellent reviews:

Tony Riches, author

Clas Merdin

It also received a Discovering Diamonds award

Other reviews include

History of War Magazine:

The History: The Interesting Bits blog
And Faith, Fiction, Friends

The book is available from all good book shops, the publisher's website and Amazon