The Forest Dwellers
The People of The New Forest are persecuted, evicted from their homes and forced to live in exile from the lands Saxons have inhabited for generations. Life is hard. The Norman interlopers are hated.
Twelve years after the Norman invasion, three soldiers are molesting a forest girl who is fairer than any they have ever seen. Leo stops the attack in the only way he can ...violently.
His actions that day trigger a chain of events that will end only with the death of a king.
The Forest Dwellers is a tale of oppression, sexual manipulation and vengeance.
The Song of Heledd
In seventh century Powys at the hall of King Cynddylan of Pengwern, the princesses, Heledd and Ffreur attend a celebratory feast where fifteen-year-old Heledd develops an infatuation for a travelling minstrel. The illicit liaison triggers a chain of events that will destroy two kingdoms and bring down a dynasty.
Set against the backdrop of the pagan-Christian conflict between kings Penda and Oswiu The Song of Heledd sweeps the reader from the ancient kingdom of Pengwern to the lofty summits of Gwynedd where Heledd battles to control both her own destiny and that of those around her.
Judith Arnopp has carried out lengthy research into the fragmented ninth century poems, Canu Llywarch Hen and Canu Heledd, and the history surrounding them to produce a fiction of what might have been.
Peaceweaver
When Ælfgar of Mercia falls foul of the king and is exiled, his daughter Eadgyth’s life is changed forever.
Sold into a disastrous marriage with Gruffydd ap Llewellyn, King of the Welsh, a man old enough to be her grandfather, Eadgyth ultimately finds herself accused of fornication, incest and treason. Alone in a foreign land, her life is forfeit until a surprise night attack destroys Gruffydd's palace, and Eadgyth is taken prisoner by Earl Harold of Wessex.
At the Saxon court she infiltrates the sticky intrigues of the Godwin family, and on the eve of his accession to the English throne, she agrees to marry Harold Godwinson. As William the Bastard assembles his fleet in the south, and Harald Hardrada prepares to invade from the North, their future is threatened, and the portentous date of October 14th 1066 looms.
Eadgyth’s tale of betrayal, passion and war highlights the plight of women, tossed in the tumultuous sea of feuding Anglo Saxon Britain.