The Eagle Will Rise: A new action packed historical adventure from MJ Porter (The Sundered Kingdom Book 1)

From author MJ Porter, a thrilling new series of Saxon England for readers of Matthew Harffy, Peter Gibbons and Bernard Cornwell.AD880The king is dead; for Mercia to survive, another must take his place.Coelwulf, Mercia’s last king, is dead. His legacy and right to rule Western Mercia have been claimed by Alfred of Wessex, but all know Alfred was never to have Mercia. Neither were the Viking raiders, who now command the eastern-most parts of Mercia and the former kingdom of the East Angles.Icel, the bastion of Mercia’s wars against Wessex and the Viking raiders, lies dying, but he refuses to abandon his beloved kingdom to her long-standing enemies.Rudolf, the once-young ally of King Coelwulf the second, is summoned by Icel to attend upon him. Grudgingly, he arrives at Budworth, the task laid before him, audacious to say the least; rescue Coelwulf’s acknowledged heir, Æthelred, from Wessex, where he's held prisoner by King Alfred. To do so, Rudolf must prevail upon the dispersed oath-sworn warrior band of King Coelwulf, and all of them, aside from him, have ignored Icel's increasingly furious demands to attend upon him. If they won't obey Icel, then why should they listen to Rudolf?The fate of Mercia’s survival rests in the hands of a man who should long have been in his grave, and Rudolf, a boy who’s become a man in the most trying of circumstances. They must forge Æthelred into the emblem of Mercian survival. Or die trying. But first, they must rescue Æthelred from someone who's always pretended to be Mercia's ally, and is anything but. Reviews for The Eagle Will Rise'Porter has an amazing way of weaving such believable events around the facts that are out there.''The pacing is strong throughout, with a good balance of tension, intrigue, and action. Every scene is vividly written and genuinely engaging, making it easy to picture everything as it happens.''Rudolf, who is the protagonist, is neither a king nor a lord and so does not have such a heavy weight of Mercia bearing down on him. Nevertheless, his love of Mercia shows through on almost every page, and he gets into enough scrapes and fights to help save Mercia as either Icel or Coelwulf has done before him.'The Eagle Will Rise is the first book in The Sundered Kingdom. This fits into MJ Porter's Tales of Mercia as below:The Tales of MercaThe Dark Age Chronicles AD540The House of Mercia AD757The Eagle of Mercia Chronicles AD825The Mercian Ninth Century/The Last King AD874The Sundered Kingdom AD880The Lady of Mercia's Daughter AD918The Earls of Mercia AD993 Read more