Corn-walla-what?! The Region of Britain that Was Ready for the Vikings.
The Forgotten Role of Cornwall in the Viking Age | Books.By BEWARE | Aaargh! The Book is Done!
Welcome to the newsletter, where history, storytelling, and inspiration meet. Every week, I share some of the fun historical research I’ve done while writing my novels, writing reflections (and sometimes tips), and sharing updates on my work and journey. If you were forwarded this message, you can join the weekly newsletter here.
Today’s Dispatch
Viking History: Cornwall’s role in the Viking Age.
Writing and Publishing: Books.by BEWARE.
Author Update: Aaargh! The Book is Done!
This week’s book recommendation.
Viking History
Cornwall’s Role in the Viking Age
There’s a scene in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when Arthur Dent finds himself at a party “full of idiots” chatting with Trillian, who would later become his romantic interest, who says, “Let’s go somewhere.” He asks, “Where?” She answers, “Madagascar.” He replies, “Let’s start with somewhere closer... like Cornwall.” The line lands because Cornwall has long sat in the British imagination as a kind of end-of-the-road backwater. It’s quiet, remote, and as far as anyone else in Britain is concerned, unremarkable.
But as historian John Fletcher explained on the latest episode of Vikingology, Cornwall’s early medieval history is perhaps among the most fascinating of the Viking Age.
Drawing from his book The Western Kingdom: The Birth of Cornwall, Fletcher brought to life a region that survived and thrived through the collapse of Rome, rather than merely endure it. Cornwall’s landscape, carved into peninsulas and inlets, was never suited for centralized Roman-style urbanism. Instead, the Cornish kings ruled by movement. There was no fixed capital. Authority shifted with the court as it traveled. Power was anchored in people, not cities.
The name itself hints at the terrain. Cornu in Latin refers to a horn or peninsula—Cornwall meaning the land at the horn’s edge. Geography mattered. This was a maritime society, culturally and economically shaped by its exposure to the sea. Long before Viking sails appeared on the horizon, the Cornish had already developed a defensive posture against Irish and Welsh raiders. They understood seaborne conflict.
When a Viking fleet arrived in 838, the Cornish didn’t treat them as an existential threat. They saw an opening. They allied with the Norse against their long-standing rivals in Wessex. It is one of the earliest recorded instances of a native British polity forming a strategic partnership with a Viking force. That moment, which had been largely overlooked in broader Viking narratives, preceded the better-known attacks on Nantes in 843 and Paris in 845, as well as the arrival of the so-called Great Heathen Army in 865.
This early alliance in Cornwall may well represent a prototype for the kinds of accommodations and alliances that would later define Viking involvement across the British Isles and continental Europe. Far from being a peripheral backwater, Cornwall was participating and thriving in a new geopolitical landscape driven by the Vikings.
I invite you to listen to our conversation with John Fletcher. His clarity and depth on the subject bring an often-overlooked region into sharper focus. If Trillian had known how interesting Cornwall actually is, she might have taken Arthur up on his suggestion. Then again, perhaps it’s good she didn’t, since Her and Arthur’s romantic conflict was instrumental in getting us a replacement Earth.
Writing and Publishing
Books.By BEWARE.
In a recent attempt to detach myself from our tech overlords’ tendrils, I decided to give a service called Books.By a try. They advertised themselves as a platform that allows authors to become their own bookstores. I found the proposition intriguing.
At first, their service impressed me. Adding books to their system was seamless, painless, and the finished product was of a higher quality than Amazon’s. I received my first couple of orders in various countries, and the service delivered the books to them without issue.
Until this week…
A reader of mine reached out to let me know that, seven weeks later, she had not received her book, and Books.By customer service had yet to resolve the issue. And that’s when things got WEIRD. She copied me on an email from their agent explaining that the reason she did not receive her book is that something had gone wrong with the interior file. Rather than say they would investigate the issue, they asked her to update the interior file.
Wait. What?!
Why would a book buyer have an interior file, or even access to edit one? It was the strangest, dumbest thing I had ever seen in my author career. I told my reader to cancel the order and get her money back, and I’ll be sending her a signed copy directly.
I understand that this was just one incident, but it’s a significant mistake. I no longer trust that their team will satisfactorily resolve customer issues as promised. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, I do not recommend purchasing from them until they resolve their issues. I have a feeling AI was involved…
If you’re an author toying with signing up with them, I recommend waiting until they get their kinks figured out. If you’re looking to purchase paperback versions of my books, please visit Amazon.
Author Update
AAARGH! It’s Done! The Book is Done!
Today’s Roland Garros final between Janick Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz spoke to me. They slugged it out for five sets and five hours, and when Alcaraz finally won, he collapsed. That’s how I felt this week when I got the final sign-off on my latest novel, The Empress and Her Wolf. I felt like I could collapse from the release of stress and tension over getting this one over the finish line.
While it was not necessarily a physical endeavor under a hot Parisian sun, it was a slog. Four rounds with my editor later, including two full rewrites and one partial, I’m proud to say that the damn thing is finished. And you know what? I LOVE IT. It feels like a triumph. It’s so good, I might as well have won Roland Garros.
Why do I feel this way, you might ask? Because I tried things in this one that I haven’t tried before. We have a noir-style murder mystery, a political conspiracy, and a torrid, ill-advised love affair with problematic power dynamics thrown in the mix. It’s a departure from the other Hastings novels in that it’s not purely adventure and warfare, although there’s plenty of that in there as well!
Don’t miss this thrilling next installment of the series, and pre-order it today on Kindle to have it delivered to your device on July 1st:
Book Recommendations
The Western Kingdom: The Birth of Cornwall
Blurb:
Cornwall has long held a mysterious allure to visitors. At once part of England and yet utterly foreign too.
This book is the first to explore the true origins, free from Arthurian mythology, of this dichotomy. Just how did a kingdom of native Romano-Britons hold out against the expanding power of the Saxon Kings of Wessex and eventually secure their language, culture and heritage into the modern day?
The answer is a tale that combines brutal warfare with cunning diplomacy and trade as it winds from the 4th century to 1066 and beyond, and one that shouts from the distant past 'Kernow bys Vyken' – Cornwall Forever.
And, as always…
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