Will Strongstaff has achieved far more than he ever thought. He is a gentleman. He has land, a wife and children. Yet he is still a warrior. He still has an oath to honour. King Richard is now under the sway of the evil Earl of Oxford Robert de Vere. When the King’s cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, sends for Will to fight in Galicia for his father, John of Gaunt, then Will has to return to the world in which he grew up, the world of the hired sword. This time he not only has enemies on the battlefield but enemies closer to hand as murderers try to end the life of his new lord, Henry Bolingbroke.
This is book 2 in the Struggle for a Crown series. This is a fascinating series to research. Some of the stories, like Robert de Vere’s escape from the Battle of Radcot Bridge are so bizarre that it is hard to credit that they happened. I have tried to get beneath the skin of two monarchs who were born in the same year. Henry Bolingbroke and King Richard were cousins but so different that it is hard to believe they had the same blood. In my research about Richard I found that he had what would be termed psychological issues. Most of what we believe about Richard comes from that master storyteller, William Shakespeare. Richard will appear in the third novel of the series.
