This series just gets better and better!

Killer of Kings by Matthew Harffy is the 4th instalment in the Bernicia Chronicles, telling the story of Beobrand Half-Hand, a young Northumbrian thegn skilled in war. And, as readers have come to expect of the author, the novel has a strong, engaging story, that sees the hero travelling the length and breadth of Saxon England, fueled by duty to his king and a desire for revenge against the man who violated his wife and has, as yet, escaped retribution. Set in East Anglia, Kent, Mercia and Northumbria (Bernicia), we see Beobrand facing enemies, both old and new.

Matthew Harffy is a great story-teller. The Bernicia Chronicles are a must-read for anyone with a love of Anglo-Saxon England. The story is fast-paced and impossible to put down. Keeping you on the edge of your seat from the opening chapter, a desperation to know what happens next will keep you reading into the early hours.

Beobrand is developing into a wonderful character; a hero always questioning himself and other people’s perceptions of him. He has a growing sense of responsibility towards his duties, his men and their families, who rely on him for protection and patronage. In Killer of Kings we see Beobrand’s past and present collide; the mysteries of his childhood are revealed, tying up some loose ends, while at the same time helping to set his course in the present and, maybe, the future.
The storyline follows two interesting opposing paths. With one strand being Beobrand’s mission and his return face the demons of his past. While the other follows those left behind; Rheagan, the freed slave who is his current love interest, and those left to protect and maintain Beobrand’s manor of Ubbanford … who find themselves with their own enemy to face. The contrast between the struggles of those who left to fight, and of those left at home, is stark. It serves to offer a new insight into the intertwined fates of the warriors and their families, the worries of each for the other and their interdependency.

Whether it is setting the scene in a king’s hall, a simple cottage or on a battlefield, Matthew Harffy transports the reader so that the sights, sounds and smells are so vivid it’s hard to believe they’re not real. His attention to detail serves to paint the picture in the reader’s mind’s eye. The horrors of the battlefield are described with care and attention, with individual fights contrasting with the greater battle and individual, heroic deaths contrasting with the devastation once the battle has ended, leaving the reader exhilarated and bereft at the same time. It is not all about battles, however; even though he is a warrior, past experience has made Beobrand all-too-aware of the political consequences of war and the machinations of kings.

The Bernicia Chronicles are set in the Seventh Century, telling the story of a time even before King Alfred, when Anglo-Saxon England was made up of a number of disparate kingdoms, with kings fighting for supremacy over each other. With his exceptional knowledge of the time, Matthew Harrfy transports the reader back to this period, using his research to vividly recreate the people, buildings and landscape of the time.

Matthew Harffy has a knack of developing characters who are at once vivid, flawed, heroic and human. Each book sees Beobrand grow and mature, and carrying more scars from his experiences. The strong story lines and interesting personalities make Matthew Harffy one of the best authors of Dark Ages historical fiction of today. He is one of those authors I do not hesitate to recommend – and often. His books are fabulous, enjoyable, entertaining and true to the history of the period. The author’s descriptive skills and lively dialogue will draw you in and keep you captivated to the very end – and beyond.

I read and loved the first book in this series, The Serpent Sword, somehow missed the second and third books, and read and loved this, the fourth in the Bernica Chronicles. Not to worry, because I will catch up on them at some point, and they are perfectly readable as stand alone books.

Set in AD626 in Anglo Saxon Britain, Beobrand finds himself fighting in the south for both his life and his honor.

Harffy writes about conflict and battle with a gritty realism. The Serpent Sword was one of the first books I had ever read in this genre and I credit Harffy's writing for making a convert of me.

Thank you to Aria via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Killer of Kings by Matthew Harffy for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

The author must be congratulated. The amount of history that he includes is truly awe inspiring. He uses the ancient names of the places and counties as part of the storyline. This must take hours of research and digging into otherwise forgotten parts of libraries

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Review:

What can i say that i have not already said about this series? probably not a lot, Matthew has continued to push and grow both his characters and his writing style book after book. Any of the wrinkles that a debut writers suffers and clunks and slips have long since vanished and his smooth writing and earthy characters shine through, his plot always have a twist and a turn that is unexpected and death lurks around any page for any character, giving the book an immediacy of the time where live is cheap and precious at the same time.

Bring on book 5 Matthew, this series just gets better with age

(Parm)

Perhaps peace was this hollow emptiness he felt, but he did not believe so. His nights were yet filled with dreams of blood and death, leaving him sweat-drenched and shaking.

I have read Killer of Kings in one day, just as Harffy's other books in the series because I just cannot put them down until I'm done.
Starting the book with a murder of two ex-heirs (and maybe still legal heirs) is a bit risky. It raised my expectations, and yet I was not disappointed in the book. It is another great book with the adventures of Beobrand, and also of those of his men whom he left behind to guard his hall and his people.

Beobrand is on yet another quest for vengeance, yet he has to put that aside to do his king's bidding. He is sent into East Anglia to safeguard the monks and the relics, but is that all the king had in mind? Our hero is haunted by memories of battles past, about people who had died for him and the people he had killed. Harffy often tells how battles are not as glorious as they sound when the scops sing about them afterwards. Beobrand is not a stranger to injuries, and his men are as mortal as any other. Harffy does not make his hero and his war band is not safe from death when in the battle. He is also agood lord, worried for his men, and devastated when he thinks that he's the only survivor of the battle.

It is another amazing book in the series and I cannot wait for the next one.

Killer of Kings is the fourth full-length novel in The Bernicia Chronicles, but only the third that I've read, although I've also read the short-story that accompanies the series which I actually enjoyed more than the full-length novels because it was about Beobrand's brother, who seems to be a wee bit cheerier than poor grumpy Beobrand.

Killer of Kings starts very strongly - the short prologue is excellent and I thought, because of what happens in it, that it was the beginning of something quite monumental, Sadly that's not the case and instead, the first 50% of the novel is taken up with almost only one battle. Personally, I found it to be a very long build up to the battle, and then dismissed far too quickly.

The remainder of the story is very much a trip down memory lane for Beobrand, and this bit of the novel I really quite enjoyed before Beobrand goes off to settle an old blood feud.

I found the novel to be moderately entertaining but would have appreciated more sophistication in the plot line. As I said, 50% of the novel is concerned with only one battle, and so what comes after feels at times rushed and also a little bit too easy for old Beobrand to accomplish what he wants. He quickly takes up with moaning and grumbling about his injuries (as he did throughout book 3) but he is almost a happier Beobrand than throughout the previous book.

Overall, he is too easily swayed from his own wishes by weak attempts to incite him to honour which fall a little flat. The ongoing Christianity/Pagan Gods thing is, I know, a staple of the time period, but as with the Bernard Cornwell books, I feel it could be handled in a far more sophisticated manner, if not, entirely forgotten about for much of the book. Penda the Pagan was, as the author admits, no persecutor of Christians and as such, it's difficult to make the East Anglian battle about religion - it was about ambition and strength, and we are told little about what happens as a consequence of the battle in terms of who is, or isn't king, and what impact this might have had on Penda and Oswald..

The side-story - taking place at home and in his absence - is used to string the novel along - a battle scene followed by what's happening in his absence - and while I know this is a literary convention employed by many to great affect. I found the back story to be a distraction from Beobrand's tale, and also, a little too predictable, even as it mingles with Beobrand's journey to his childhood home.

Overall I think the novel is a firm three star, bordering on a four, and therefore I've given it a four. The author has a strong view of the Albion inhabited by Beobrand and his comrades and this is a strength of the novel.

I will add my review to Goodreads, Amazon and my Wordpress site when it's released.