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#HistFicThursdays - On a Sword's Edge - J R Tomlin - Guest Post

For this week's #HistFicThursdays blog, I'm delighted to be welcoming  J R Tomlin  to the blog with a guest post about her latest book On a Sword's Edge ,   as part of her  Coffee Pot Book Club  tour. In her guest post, she discusses a topic very close to home for Crowvus HQ(!): the impact of the Norse on Scotland. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb Scotland. 1263. The scent of rain mingles with the smoke of campfires as word spreads: the Norse are coming… As tempers rise between King Alexander and the Norse King Haakon, at the center of it all is sixteen-year-old William Douglas, a squire in service to Sir John Stewart, Lord High Steward of Scotland. When Haakon's fearsome fleet is espied approaching Scotland's shores, carrying the greatest invasion force the Norse have ever mustered, the dread of battle settles over the land. Summoned to Ayr Castle, William joins the Scottish forces in a desperate defense. Now tasked with serving his newly knighted brothe...
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Book Review - The Fall of Roman Britain - John Lambshead

This book looked absolutely fascinating and it didn't disappoint! The journey followed through the pages demonstrates a multidisciplinary assessment of Roman Britain: its fall, and the gradual shift away from all things Roman.


The different approaches - scientific, historical, linguistic - merge and blend as succinctly in the text as they did in the evolution of culture from Brythonic, through Roman, and into Saxon. The distinct and maintained differences between cultures was fascinating to read about. This book is clearly well-researched, and the author supports every theory he puts forward. I appreciate too that he makes the point all these theories are just best-fit conjecture.

I loved the layout of the book, like a series of essays each with their own argument to establish and conclusion to reach. This prevented an overwhelming presentation of facts, but managed each subtopic as a self-contained and effectively structured assignment. The ultimate conclusion ties up the contents of the book, leading one chapter into another.

There was obvious excitement and personal engagement with the text as Lambshead addressed the topic of Tintagel, and I would have liked to have had more of that throughout the book, but it maintained (as was probably more appropriate) a more measured explanation.

This was an intriguing book - well written and with clear presentation - which is a multidisciplinary masterpiece, addressing a fascinating and often overlooked period in British history.

Thank you to Pen & Sword Books for providing me with a review copy!

You can get a copy of The Fall of Roman Britain via Pen & Sword, or on Amazon.

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