The Vikings on the Cotentin try to live in peace with their neighbours, the Franks, but when they are attacked they have to fight. Aided by fellow Vikings they begin to make inroads into the land of the Franks until disaster strikes and the new allies meet defeat. When the full force of the Franks descends upon the Haugr every member of the clan must fight to prevent their extinction.
I was born in 1950 in Lancashire and attended a boy’s grammar school. After qualifying as an English and Drama teacher in 1972, I worked in the North East of England for the next 35 years. During that time I did write, mainly plays, pantos and musicals for the students at the three schools in which I worked.
When I stopped teaching I set up my own consultancy firm and worked as an adviser in schools and colleges in the North East of England. The new Conservative Government ended that avenue of work and in 2010 I found that I had time on my hands; having started work at the age of 15 I found the lack of work not to my liking and used the time to research the Roman invasion of Britain and begin to create a novel. The result was The Sword of Cartimandua.
My decision to begin writing was one of the best I have ever taken.
Well up to Griff Hosker's standard, read all four now starting No 5 of the same series. The story is well written with a good mixture of life in it and the action bits are worth a tv serial like Utrecht got on the Last Kingdom. Easy to follow and each book is in its own story with at the end a feeling of more to come, leaves you with that good feeling and anticipation for the future of the main characters, now a firm follower of Hrofle the horseman and his clan. Highly recommend that the reader gets the first book then follows through...
Another very good book in the series . Unfortunately absolutely littered with errors , mainly spelling , wrong words used and some sentences being nonsensical . For example : Salve instead of slave , released instead of realised , ten instead of tend . In some instances several errors per page . However as I said , a very good story .
Still as interesting and active as previous books and this was a really good book. You could almost bear eye witness to some of the development of the stronghold and it's area. The characters appear well researched and believable. But the proof reading and spelling e.g. sea instead of seax etc detracted from the story a little. Otherwise very enjoyable.
I have really enjoy Mr. Hosker’s books and have read all of several series. This particular book was hard to read due to numerous typos and spelling errors. It turned a usually entertaining book into a chore to read. True to his style however there was a good story line and characters.
Very good story line but wow, the editor did a poor job! Misprints and words used incorrectly all through. A couple of times the characters were sent to do something and mysteriously ended back in battles. Hosker does a great job but sometimes the inconsistencies really add up.
I enjoyed the story and the fact that his work is not filled with profanity. I find it hard to believe that an English teacher would publish a book with so many editing mistakes on each page. It is distracting.
This is one of the worst jobs of proofreading I have seen . It detracted from a decent novel. Hopefully future volumes will correct the numerous errors encountered in this novel.
The story is good but there were so so many typos. I would estimate between 50 and 100 and that ruined the experience for me I’m afraid. Better quality control needed I’m afraid.