What do you think?
Rate this book
Warrior Princess, Errant Page: Book 1 of the Premyslid Chronicles
Set in the days when Good King Wenceslas ruled Bohemia, the story of Emma, the warrior princess, and Podevin, the errant page, is told against a background of tenth-century court intrigue, personality clashes, and warfare.
Can a 22-year-old page and bodyguard avenge the death of his assassinated king, while being hunted as an outlaw?
Can an Anglo-Saxon princess, stuck hundreds of miles from home in a foreign court, follow her heart when her husband does not want her?
Will Emma and Podevin be able to find a secure future in such a deadly, dangerous world?
Can a 22-year-old page and bodyguard avenge the death of his assassinated king, while being hunted as an outlaw?
Can an Anglo-Saxon princess, stuck hundreds of miles from home in a foreign court, follow her heart when her husband does not want her?
Will Emma and Podevin be able to find a secure future in such a deadly, dangerous world?
- GenresHistorical Fiction
318 pages, Paperback
Published March 6, 2025
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 21, 2025
Most people in the UK will probably only know about ‘Good King Wenceslas’ from the Christmas Carol, and may not even realise that he was a real person who ruled Bohemia between 921 and (probably) 935 AD. But from the bare bones of the carol and the historical facts, Oakley has created a marvellous tale of forbidden romance and blood stained politics.
The page who followed Wenceslas through the snow in the carol is given a name: Podevin – also a real person in history. The Warrior Princess of the title is Emma: half-sister to King Athelstan of England, niece of Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia, daughter of Alfred the Great, and a woman renowned as a warrior in an age where women were not expected to take up arms! (Athelstan and Aethelflaed were real as well).
The love story between Emma and Podevin is woven seamlessly through events both historical and fictional in an exciting and absorbing story that brings the time and place vividly into view. The characters – lords, peasants and priests, heroes and villains – interact in a way that is both authentic and intriguing: these are people who, despite being over a thousand years distant from us in time, we can recognise and identify with. Their world is not ours, but their struggles, their pains, their passions and their triumphs are part of human life in any time or place. And we want them to win, to find love, and justice, and hope, just as we do.
Do they succeed? No spoilers – but I’m looking forward to the next book!
The page who followed Wenceslas through the snow in the carol is given a name: Podevin – also a real person in history. The Warrior Princess of the title is Emma: half-sister to King Athelstan of England, niece of Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia, daughter of Alfred the Great, and a woman renowned as a warrior in an age where women were not expected to take up arms! (Athelstan and Aethelflaed were real as well).
The love story between Emma and Podevin is woven seamlessly through events both historical and fictional in an exciting and absorbing story that brings the time and place vividly into view. The characters – lords, peasants and priests, heroes and villains – interact in a way that is both authentic and intriguing: these are people who, despite being over a thousand years distant from us in time, we can recognise and identify with. Their world is not ours, but their struggles, their pains, their passions and their triumphs are part of human life in any time or place. And we want them to win, to find love, and justice, and hope, just as we do.
Do they succeed? No spoilers – but I’m looking forward to the next book!
September 17, 2025
Like many, all I knew of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ was from the Christmas carol. In Warrior Princess, Errant Page, Nigel Oakley does a fantastic job of fleshing out the names into real people, and breathing life into the tumultuous times they inhabit.
Emma, the Warrior Princess of the title, is destined to marry into royalty; however, Podevin, the Errant Page, is drawn to her. It’s a genuine pleasure to read and observe how they grow up - not only in the physical sense, but as they come to inhabit the roles fate pushes them into, in a tale full of intrigue and political machinations.
I’m very much looking forward to the next instalment in their story.
Emma, the Warrior Princess of the title, is destined to marry into royalty; however, Podevin, the Errant Page, is drawn to her. It’s a genuine pleasure to read and observe how they grow up - not only in the physical sense, but as they come to inhabit the roles fate pushes them into, in a tale full of intrigue and political machinations.
I’m very much looking forward to the next instalment in their story.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews