The Earl of Mercia's Father: England The Second Viking Age - the first book in the epic retelling of the last century of Saxon England by MJ Porter

The Earls of Mercia #1

by M.J. Porter

Every story has a beginning
The Second Viking Age

Leofwine, still recovering from the murder of his father at the Battle of Maldon, must serve his king as England experiences a fresh wave of Raider attacks orchestrated by the very man responsible for his father’s death, Olaf Tryggvason.

On a diplomatic mission to Norway, Leofwine is compelled to ally himself with Olaf Tryggvason, and when they’re attacked by the Danish king, Swein Forkbeard, seeking retribution for Olaf’s previous trickery, Leofwine is severely wounded.

Surviving the attack, Leofwine returns to England to find he’s been all but replaced, and the king is as weak as ever. Leofwine must fight for his position and influence amongst an unruly mob of self-interested nobles while coming to terms with his life-changing injuries and new responsibilities as both a husband, father and ealdorman. To make England safe again, he must also force his frightened king to combat a new wave of Viking Raiders with an offensive attack on those who aid the Raiders.

The Earl of Mercia’s Father is the first book in the epic Earls of Mercia series charting the final century of
Saxon England, as seen through the eyes of Ealdorman Leofwine, the father of Earl Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, and ally of Lady Elfrida, England’s first crowned queen.


The Earls of Mercia Series
The Earl of Mercia's Father
The Danish King's Enemy
Northman Part 1
Northman Part 2
The King's Earl
The Earl of Mercia
The English Earl
The Earl's King
Viking King
The English King
The King's Brother

PRAISE FOR THE EARLS OF MERCIA SERIES
"This is a fantastic series of books by an author who certainly knows his subject. I was into the Roman invasions but am rapidly converting to the Britons!" Amazon Reviewer"A must-read for fans of Viking age England. This promises to be a very good series of which I can't wait for the next instalment." Amazon Reviewer

"Intriguing, well-written stories about the early days of Great Britain between Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror... at the time Athelred was King... the story is written from the perspective of one the emerging Earl's who sits on the Witan (council). The time period shows the interplay between Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries (Viking raiders) as well." Amazon.com Reviewer

Genres: Historical Fiction, Medieval, Historical

442 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 30, 2013

About the author

I'm an author of historical fiction (Early English (before 1066)/Viking) and now five 20th-century mysteries..

The Eagle of Mercia Chronicles (featuring a young Icel from The Last King series) is now available from Boldwood Books. As is the complete Brunanburh Series and the first two books in the Dark Age Chronicles, my foray to before Saxon England was Saxon England. Enjoy.

The Ninth Century Series (The Last King), are stories of ninth-century England, but not as it's been written before, (featuring an older Icel and some other familiar faces too).

The Erdington Mysteries now has a third book in the series—The Secret Sauce. (Did you know Erdington would have been in Mercia back in the Saxon period? I know, you can't get me away from the place.) The Barrage Body is coming soon.

The Royal Women Who Made England, my first non-fiction book about the royal women of the tenth century, is available now.

I like to write. You've been warned.

Find me at
www.mjporterauthor.com or at www.mjporterauthor.blog where I blog about books and films and sometimes, writing!
https://linktr.ee/MJPorterauthor
https://mjporterauthor.sumupstore.com

You can join my monthly subscriber newsletters and gain access to the restricted page on my blog at the same time.
https://BookHip.com/MGWHLDC (Saxon stories)
https://BookHip.com/THPKCKP (mysteries only)


(I have odd reading tastes - there's no need to notice though!!) I'm also exceedingly anti-social - that you may notice but must accept!

Reviews

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Porter’s debut historical fiction novel. I’ve read most of her other book from dark ages to seventh century to tenth century now. I can see how some scenes aren’t as nuanced as in her other books. But I still could feel the fear of the warriors in the shield wall and the torrential rain on my face.
She does so much research and it really pays off. There’s a quick scene where a boy runs around the street collecting horse poop to use on the family’s crops so they’ll have food the next winter. It’s such a sweet slice of life.
Now the main protagonist is Leofwine, who is a fair and just young man. He becomes ealdorman after he father dies in a battle against the Raiders from the northern lands. Consequently we will see lots of fighting between the Northmen and the English. Leofwine is badly scarred and blinded in on eye in the beginning of this story. He worries his new wife, Æthelflæd, will dissolve their marriage and leave. But she surprises him and they seem to form a loving relationship. So this is a big surprise for me, that we have some romance in the book. This is totally and completely unexpected because in previous books there is barely a side glance if any glance to relationships. But I do enjoy watching their friendship and love grow.
The battle scenes aren’t as plentiful as in other works, but you can see the author’s budding desire to jump right into the thick of things. As I said, the atmosphere of gore and messiness of war is palpable. I want to take a shower after reading these scenes.
I’m enjoying this new leading man, Leofwine, and will continue to follow his adventures.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Earl of Mercia's Father is the first book I've read by prolific historical novelist M.J. Porter, but it certainly won't be the last. Leofwine is a very sympathetic character who provides a compelling point of view into the events of the final decade of the 10th century in England and into the origins of what was to become one of the most powerful English families throughout the 11th Century. In particular I also thought Porter's depiction of King Aethelred was admirably nuanced and complex.

As the story unfolds, we're treated to several exciting moments of political intrigue and some breathtaking battle sequences, as well as warmer moments of domestic homelife. All of these were well researched and interesting, although some of the more mundane domestic and administrative scenes did slow the pacing a bit in the book's middle. I must confess that I also found the unfolding of the book's inciting incident during Leofwine's diplomatic mission to Norway somewhat confusing, but this was quickly overcome by the remainder of the story, which drew me along, eager to find out what was going to happen next. The writing was excellent throughout and included several memorable turns of phrase. One of my favorites, near the end of the book, nicely encapsulates Leofwine's character and is quite poignant: "As the shield wall stretched further outwards, he knew less and less of the men by name, although he tried to remember their faces, as he believed all good leaders should. No one should risk their life knowing that they'd be forgotten if they died."

[Jaybour · Rating 1 out of 5]

APPALLING

From homophone abuse to outright orthographic savagery, mystifying non-sequiturs, absurd punctuation faux-pas, and endless sentence constructs that leave the reader nonplussed and irritable, this piece of swill must be the worst demonstration of proofreading hell. Chapter 9 is the most glaring example of poor writing I have ever had the misfortune to witness. It was a supreme effort to read this tripe through to the end. Porter or Kindle or the Publisher is responsible for this exercise in literary delinquency and should be ashamed that this travesty ever saw the light of day!

[June Greek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lack of attention to important aspects of good writing

For the careful study of the historical data and attempt to be accurate the flow of the action is badly interrupted because of poor grammar and the lack of proofing causing misspellings in great quantity. Both of those problems cAuse the reader to stop and interrupts the flow of the story line.

[don phillips · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let down by to much page filling

Started off good and looked like being a page turner but fizzled out to become boring filled with words but lacking substance

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Sarah-Jayne Briggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I actually found this book to be quite a good, interesting, entertaining read.

I can't speak for the historical accuracy of this novel. I only know bits and pieces of the time this novel is set in. But I found the characters to be interesting and well-written and the storyline to be engaging, one that kept me reading.

The amount of characters with similar-sounding names was a bit confusing, though. By the end of the book, I was struggling to differentiate between the different people.

I really liked the relationships between the characters, especially Leofwine and his wife. The scenes between them were particularly sweet and it was nice to see that real love had grown from the arranged marriage.

I felt that the author did a really good job of showing the politics that was in the kingdom. I also thought that it came across really well how difficult Leofwine found his injury and partial blindness - as well as how he learned to compensate for that disability. Of course, anyone who wasn't whole in that time would have a much more difficult time of it than someone with that kind of injury in modern day.

The descriptions in the book were really good and I was able to see a lot of the events happening in my mind, especially when it came to the fighting scenes. I did, however, notice quite a few errors in the books - apostrophes used when something was supposed to be plural; and Hunter changed gender at one point.

I think I'd definitely be interested in reading more books in this series. It would be good to see what else is going to happen.

[Eileen Iciek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an unpolished gem of a book. Taking place during the reign of Aethelred the Unready, it follows the life of one of the king's ealdormen, Leofwine. It was not so long ago that I read Helen Hollick's and Pat Bracewell's books on Aethelred's second wife, Emma of Normandy, so I enjoyed hearing a little about what happened before her arrival in England, and with a more forgiving attitude toward the hapless king than those two books had. It can be difficult to know the real character of a historical figure from so long ago, so this balance added to my interest.

The shortcoming of this book is its unpolished part - the book cries out for an editor's red pencil. There is at least one error per page in this novel. Sometimes it is an incorrect word choice (e.g., err vs. ere; exasperating vs. exacerbating), typos or peculiar formatting, while at other times it is going into unnecessary detail about mundane matters. There is also too much telling and not enough showing and it could have had a sharper focus in telling the story. However, I think I could have given the book at least 4 stars if the word choice issues, typos and formatting errors had been cleaned up by a copy editor.

[Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable story, with a minimalist style. The pacing was sound, but there were quite a few grammatical errors. The author needed to spend more time in editing, it needed just a bit more polish, but the story did not suffer despite this. I appreciated the author's emphasis on setting and world building, not choosing to lump a bunch of shallow action sequences in, merely for the sake of grabbing fickle readers. Sword play is great, but I prefer depth of character and the author clearly does as well.
A good read, I would recommend it to those who can enjoy fantasy or historical fiction that is not layered with commercialized violence.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Initially, I found this a little slow going, however after the first chapter I got into and enjoyed it, though the names are a bit confusing at times, with several characters share the same names. The description of events differs greatly in parts, with some very details and yet another ‘Leofwine’ arrives at the Witan and in the very next sentence is on his way home.

[Terriann Rea-gaustad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out pretty well, but the quality of the writing didn't hold up throughout the book. It's not as bad as a lot of the self-published books I've found, and the author shows promise. As it went on, there were errors in grammar & word usage. There are a lot of people in the story with names that are very similar, making it hard to follow at times; the names used are historically accurate, but this might be an area where a bit of author's modification would have been a good idea, to change or omit some of the repetitive names and lesser characters. Sometimes there is an excess of historical facts that really doesn't add to the story or depth of any of the characters; there are mentions of many persons who happened to be attending a gathering and have no other part in the story, never mentioned again. I'm halfway through the second book now, and I would say that the first one is better written, insofar as having fewer grammar/usage errors. The book is fairly short, though, so I was glad the free version I got included the first two in the series. I got it as a free download, and unfortunately, I don't find it well written enough to pay for the next installment. There are some sections where it's pretty dry, and there could have been better character development.

[Linda Susan Garman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Historical fiction

This was a great joy to read the telling of the coming of the second Viking age was fascinating and exceptional written. The battles and standing in the shield wall will make your heart beat faster and your imagination soar. The caricatures are believable that you feel that you are part of them.I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

[Lily Keirby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prefer this e version to previous releases

Earl Leofwines exploits through the Viking raids and King Aethelreds reign, his family and land holdings preciously guarded, the in and outs of political intrigues all jog along nicely and that's it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting period in England’s history. Characters and dialogue are well done. The writing of the Romance scenes seem forced as if it was a duty to place in the story. The original title seemed more apt. Good enough to try the second novel in the series.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than war

The author brought interest of the every day concerns. The political tactics are very interesting. Enjoyed the novel not just blood and guts.

[Maggie]

bx,Rokp (1.99)

[Mike Lloyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Earl.

Very interesting reading the history of those times but disappointed with the hero. Obviously a good fighter but consistently full of self doubt. Hence only a three star as the reader I was frustrated with the heroes mental problems, not what one I would have expected of a Viking fighter from those far off times. A man of steel he is not!

[M.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review from Amazon.co.uk

Having read the Dragon of Unison books by this author, I thought I'd give this book a try too. I studied early Anglo-Saxon Northumbria but don't know very much about that part of the later Saxon period (around 1000AD) or the history of that area but it was a really good read. The battle scenes were well covered and the story was interesting - history nearly always concerns itself with kings and court so its interesting to read about the lives of other people at that time, even if they are lords and attend meetings with the king and his court. I liked the characters as people (apart from the ones I wasn't supposed to like) and the setting was totally believable so this all helps me when I'm reading historical novels to know some actual research has been done. The only criticism I have, and its a minor one, is that it would have been nice to have had an anchor point before I started reading - e.g. King Alfred (who everyone has heard of). To know how long he had been dead before the action takes place and the relationship between him and the king in the book, would have helped me to place the story a bit better. The list of major characters in the back of the book was very helpful for this. I was so keen to see how the story developed that I've already bought the second book and am half way through that.