Audiobook Spotlight: The Briton and the Dane: Legacy, by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Sebastian Lockwood

 

Design by A+ Content Services

Whispered by the wise and the learned. Talked of in hushed tones around luminous firesides. Engraved by awestruck scribes in the scriptoria of the chronicles. Against all the odds, great King Alfred defeated a vastly superior Danish army outside Chippenham. This victory, the sages prophesied, would guarantee peace throughout the land. Or so they thought.

Two years later, Rigr the Bastard, vengeful and seeking to claim his birthright, was defeated in the wilds of East Anglia. His blood-smeared berserker warriors vanquished; no quarter asked for - no quarter given.

Now, a further two years later, the Vikings return. Noble Prince Sven instigates a seaborne invasion, fueled partly by blind rage when he discovers that his brother, Prince Erik, has sworn fealty to the Anglo-Saxon king. His own brother: a traitor and a fool.

Erik’s love, Lady Gwyneth, attempts to stop the invasion before it starts by uniting the two estranged brothers, but her scheming only succeeds in making matters worse. Indeed, her interference guarantees the death of thousands of warriors in the freezing, tumultuous North Sea. 

So when the horns of Sven’s monumental fleet of warships are heard off the fogbound coast of Britannia, King Alfred - outnumbered, outshipped, and weary of the fray - must rouse his jaded Saxon warriors and lead them to sea to repel his most formidable enemy yet. A host motivated by the spilled blood of the fallen, the spirit of black vengeance, and the delights of a warrior’s reward in Valhalla is the most fearsome opponent of all.  

Alfred. Sven. Erik. Gwyneth. Amidst the ferrous reverberation of a battle royale - one or all must die, and the fate of a nation hangs in the balance one final time.

Listen to the Preface HERE

BUY LINKS

Universal Purchase Link

Amazon Global Link

Book Trailer

Audiobook Spotlight: The Briton and the Dane: Birthright by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Sebastian Lockwood

 

Design by A+ Content Services

Two years have passed since Alfred the Great successfully defeated Guthrum, King of the Vikings. The fair land of England is at peace. That is, until the harmony is threatened by Guthrum's angry, vengeful, illegitimate son, Rigr, who is hell-bent on usurping his father's throne. Rigr demands his Birthright - an acknowledgment that he is the sole heir to the Danelaw, but his father refuses his claim.

Rigr assembles his army; a motley, but formidable, cohort of disenchanted warriors. Fearsome Guthrum, the ruler of everything from Kent to Northumbria, is made aware of the threat and conjures his forces, meeting the rebellious host on the field at Thetford.

Thousands upon thousands of bloodthirsty warriors confront each other on the sunlit, windless plains of East Anglia. The victors will rewrite the course of history, and the fate of England is in the hands of the gods of war.

Listen to the Preface HERE

BUY LINKS

Universal Purchase Link

Amazon Global Link

Book Trailer

Audiobook Spotlight: The Briton and the Dane by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Sebastian Lockwood

 

Design by A+ Content Services

King Alfred the Great has thwarted the Viking threat against his kingdom of Wessex. Signing a treaty with the formidable Danish King Guthrum, he succeeds in pushing the heathen army back to the rolling fens of East Anglia.

An uneasy peace holds sway: The King establishes a standing army under Lord Richard, who takes command of the citadel at Wareham.

Richard and his army are accompanied by his daughter, Gwyneth, an impetuous and reckless young woman – at once striking, intellectually gifted, but dangerously vain and imprudent.

While Richard broods on the Viking threat, Gwyneth falls in love with an enemy prince - only to discover that she has been betrothed to a Saxon warrior twice her age.

Refusing to countenance her grim fate, she flees the fortress, but is soon kidnapped by a Viking warrior and taken to the camp of King Guthrum while Saxon search parties scour the land.

In captivity, a hostage to fortune, and the focus of political intrigue, Gwyneth is submerged in a world of expediency, betrayal, and black treachery. Slowly, she realizes the truth is suspect, nothing is what it appears and her reality cannot be trusted.

And all the time, against this background, she desires nothing more than to be reunited with her dashing Danish prince.

Listen to Chapter One HERE

BUY LINKS

Universal Purchase Link

Amazon Global Link

Book Trailer

Audiobook Spotlight: The Briton and the Dane: Concordia by Mary Ann Bernal, narrated by Sebastian Lockwood

 

Design by A+ Content Services

Travel back in time to late ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Britain, where Alfred the Great rules with a benevolent hand while the Danish King rules peacefully within the boundaries of the Danelaw. Trade flourishes, and scholars from throughout the civilized world flock to Britannia's shores to study at the King's Court School at Winchester.

Enter Concordia, a beautiful noblewoman whose family is favored by the king. Vain, willful, and admired but ambitious and cunning, Concordia is not willing to accept her fate. She is betrothed to the valiant warrior Brantson but sees herself as far too young to lie in the bedchamber of an older suitor. She wants to see the wonders of the world, embracing everything in it - preferably, but dangerously, at the side of Thayer, the exotic Saracen who charms King Alfred's court and ignites her yearning passions.

Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man. As she awaits her fate in the Moorish captain's bed, by sheer chance she discovers that salvation is at hand in the gilded court of a Saracen nobleman.

While awaiting rescue, Concordia finds herself at the center of intrigue, plots, blackmail, betrayal, and the vain desires of two egotistical brothers, each willing to die for her favor. Using only feminine cunning, Concordia must defend her honor while plotting her escape as she awaits deliverance somewhere inside steamy, unconquered Muslim Hispania.

Listen to the Preface HERE

BUY LINKS

Universal Purchase Link

Amazon Global Link

Book Trailer

Readers' Favorite Book Review - Crusader's Path by Mary Ann Bernal

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

In my ongoing interest in the human psyche and why people behave the way they do, I discovered most individuals react in the same way when coming in contact with a person who may or may not have a communicable disease.

What immediately came to mind was how people with infectious diseases had been treated throughout the centuries. Over the years, many movies were made about the Crusades and leper warriors, such as King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. The Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, a military order, was established to care for the hospitalized lepers around 1119 AD.

However, in recent years, the atrocities of warfare have been articulated with documentaries and dramatic television series where the brutality of the age is showcased and not swept into the background. In Knightfall, we see a leper knight whose face is covered by a mask. Yes, there were warriors affected by the disease who fought valiantly during every campaign to free the Holy Land from the infidel.

But I wanted to go back to the beginning, to the First Crusade, to understand what drove the warriors of Christ to leave their homes, enduring untold hardships for a holy cause. It took years to reach the Holy Land, a feat not everyone accomplished, dying en route from disease, starvation, and in battle.

Creating a narrative set during the First Crusade satisfied a two-fold desire to discern the truth about life in such a turbulent era.

BOOK REVIEW

Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

Crusader’s Path by Mary Ann Bernal takes us back to the days of Christendom’s First Crusade against the Muslim invaders of Constantinople, Jerusalem, and lands in between. Avielle, a minstrel’s daughter, is doing God’s work, healing and caring for the most rejected of society’s cast-offs, the lepers. Having lost her father to the disease, Avielle is well aware she may succumb to leprosy’s ravages one day, but she is determined to commit her life to serve her God and community. That is until she meets and falls in love with a merchant, Gideon, who steals her heart. Already betrothed, Gideon is also a Jew, and Avielle realizes her love affair with him is doomed, so she rededicates her life to following her God and healing the sick. In the meantime, Etienne, a close confidant of Duke Robert of Normandy, follows Lord Robert as he heeds the call of Pope Urban II to free the Holy Land of the accursed Muslim hordes. Inspired by Peter, a visiting priest, Avielle joins the holy crusade to seek personal redemption from her God for her transgressions against Him with Gideon. Crossing paths on their journey to the Holy Land, Avielle and Etienne realize they have found the direction and purpose in their lives with each other. Avielle and Etienne forge a strong bond as they head into the unknown and the extreme danger of battle against the Muslim hordes.

Crusader’s Path is the very type of historical fiction I enjoy. Centered around actual historical events and real characters, it is character-driven and, at its core, a beautiful, romantic, and tragic story. In Avielle, author Mary Ann Bernal has created a wonderful character; strong, driven, passionate, and quite unusual for a woman of the era. I particularly enjoyed the pull and tug of the torment between her desires, her duty, and the passionate love she felt for both Gideon and Etienne. Etienne equally was a complex character torn between his love for his wife and his vineyard and the excitement that Duke Robert offered him on the road as a fighting, active knight. That both Avielle and Etienne, with their worldly demons and differing motivations, could find the peace and happiness they both desperately sought in each other’s arms was the highlight of this story for me. There is enough battling and action in this story to keep the adrenaline-junkie glued to the pages, but for me, it is a romance, pure and simple and a beautiful one at that. I appreciated the time the author spent detailing the ridiculous disparity between those who led the crusades; the dukes, the nobles, the knights, and those poor peasant farmers who fought and died for their God and the afterlife. I love how the author sums it up when she suggests that, encouraged by Pope Urban II, peasants trading their pitiful subsistence for the brief excitement of travel and battle, followed by life in heaven and the forgiveness of all sins, was a simple choice to make. This book is a fantastic read and one I can highly recommend.

Universal Buy Link

Author Website

The Briton and the Dane: Concordia by Mary Ann Bernal - Hardcover edition now available

Travel back in time to late Ninth Century Anglo-Saxon Britain where Alfred the Great rules with a benevolent hand while the Danish King rules peacefully within the boundaries of the Danelaw. Trade flourishes, and scholars from throughout the civilized world flock to Britannia’s shores to study at the King’s Court School at Winchester.

Enter Concordia, a beautiful noblewoman whose family is favored by the king. Vain, willful, and admired, but ambitious and cunning, Concordia is not willing to accept her fate. She is betrothed to the valiant warrior, Brantson, but sees herself as far too young to lay in the bedchamber of an older suitor. She wants to see the wonders of the world, embracing everything in it; preferably, but dangerously, at the side of Thayer, the exotic Saracen who charms King Alfred’s court and ignites her yearning passions.

Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man. As she awaits her fate in the Moorish captain’s bed, by sheer chance, she discovers that salvation is at hand in the gilded court of a Saracen nobleman.

While awaiting rescue, Concordia finds herself at the center of intrigue, plots, blackmail, betrayal and the vain desires of two egotistical brothers, each willing to die for her favor. Using only feminine cunning, Concordia must defend her honor while plotting her escape as she awaits deliverance, somewhere inside steamy, unconquered Muslim Hispania.

Bernal paints a dazzling portrait of what life was like in 9th Century Hispania. There is an elegant sweep of historical brilliance, giving this book an almost sensual grounding of time and place. Bernal has certainly woven the history into this incredibly enthralling tale. I was particularly interested in Bernal’s depiction of the Emirate of Cordova (Emirate of Córdoba). This was a time of power struggles and dynasties, but it was also the beginning of a political decline of the emirate. I think Bernal has captured the essence of this era very well through her fictional portrayal. The tension between the Muslim community and the Christian one is evident throughout this story, and indeed history tells us that there was much unrest, particularly at the Christian border. 

Although this is book #4 in the series, Concordia stands very firmly on her own two feet. So, if you are looking for your next fix of historical fiction, then why not check out The Briton and the Dane: Concordia (The Briton and the Dane #4) by Mary Ann Bernal.

I Highly Recommend.
Mary Anne Yarde
The Coffee Pot Book Club

Global Purchase Link