Sixth Century Britain – the New Novel

Here’s the cover…

And here’s the synopsis…

In the Westerlands of those isles once named Britannia by the Empire and its vanished Legions, the brother of Ambros Skyhound is killed in a kinfolk-feud, which will ignite a vicious civil war. There are warlords who follow the new ways of the Christ-followers – those, too, who still defend their belief in the old order of the Oak Seers and the Great Melody. But the natural ravages of both Yellow Pestilence and the Endless Winter’s hunger may attack each side equally. And, in the midst of all this, Ambros has a dream. To unite all the territories of the four former provinces – to form a new Britannia Magna. It’s a dream shared by his teacher and mentor, Meridden of Sea Fort. And also by the blind song-sayer, Morgose. The journeys and struggles of Ambros, Meridden and Morgose through duplicity, betrayals, conflict, plague and famine, will become the stuff of legend. Yet that same legend, which should be shining a light on the road ahead is, through collective folly and the implacable forces of nature, paving the way for a terrible darkness.

Join me on this journey back to 6th Century Britain.
Feel it! See it! Live it!

The book includes some interesting maps, showing the way in which my Sixth Century, Dark Age characters may have thought about the lands in which they lived.  First, the region that they call Westerlands, those former tribal lands, which the Romans had called First Province, Britannia Prima…

Second, the area of Westerlands where the novel begins, in the White-Wilds, which we’ll later know as Gwynedd…

Third, each of the five former Provinces of Roman Britannia, now barely even recognised as distinct territories…

Fourth, the areas of Northland (formerly the Roman Province of Britannia Secunda) and Walls-Land (the former Province of Valentia), where some of the later action happens…

Fifth, a map showing my imagined spread of the various old tribal groups who, in 540 AD, still see themselves as distinct blood-kin, despite 400 years of Roman occupation. The map also shows the areas occupied by larger groups of Incomers (Irish) and Outlanders (Angles, Saxons and Jutes)…

And, finally, a map showing the way that “road maps” would have worked at the time – itineraries, in common use until the 18th Century, with highways shown as straight lines, with principal settlements, distances and a few other significant details…

The maps are just a small part of the way in which we tried to faithfully recreate the way Sixth Century post-Roman Britain may have been in reality. But judge for yourself by reading The Song-Sayer’s Lament.