Reged: 12/13/04
Posts: 4490
Loc: West Orange, NJ (IBS-D)
The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell - Historical adventure novel about the Danes invading England in the 800's
I've worked my way through Cornwell's Arthur trilogy (aka, The Warlord Chronicles) - The Winter King, The Enemy of God, and Excalibur - and through the first two books of his Sharpe novels - Sharpe's Eagle and Sharpe's Gold. All of his books are excellent and his writing is incredibly vivid. Warning: the historical periods he writes about are bloody, violent, and cruel, although very exciting. I suspect his Arthur trilogy is closer to the truth than Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy - assuming there's some truth to be close to - but I much prefer to believe Mary Stewart's take on the whole matter.
Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire is wonderful, but I couldn't get into her later vampire novels. I love two of her lesser known books: Feast Of All Saints and Cry To Heaven. For a great sensuous vampire series, try Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain chronicles. I've read the first 5 plus Flame In Byzantium and some of the short stories and they're excellent.
The Jodi Picoult books sound great - my library has a bunch of them. You might like Nancy Pickard's The Whole Truth.
-------------------- [Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]