The Devil's Army takes the character on from his eponymous debut in a thoroughly enthralling book. Hereward is a little older, a little wiser, but still has to fight to keep control of his temper and battle lust. Firmly set in swampy England, Hereward is gathering an army of rebels to defy the might of William the Bastard. Hereward's trials now are of a different nature, needing to inspire his fighters but also care for the refugees who have flocked to his banner. Accompanied once again by the monk Alric, his brother Redwald and wife Turfrida, Hereward has to find a way to battle against the Norman forces arrayed against him, in spite of their superior numbers, training and arms and armour. Some brilliant scenes of guerilla warfare from a time long before the term was invented intersperse the book, but for me it was the plotting and intrigue that drove the plot rather than the battles. Don't misunderstand - when violence occurs, it is as bloody and heart-poundingly described as Wilde made it in the first book, but personally it was the twists and turns, the way things would be going well one moment and falling apart the next, the double agents and betrayals and one particular piece of nobility from an unexpected source that made this book worth the five star rating. James Wilde has got this series off to a cracking start with the first two books, the nature of them shifting to reflect Hereward's changing character. The recurring characters are deeply intriguing and I can't wait for the next book to see what trials they face and how they will change to overcome them.

This fast moving novel had me gripped from the beginning. Hereward is not a historical character much written about in novels, and from the start his character drew me in. I would cheerfully have become one of his Devil's Army and followed him through bog and forest. The short chapters made this very readable, and the descriptive narratives of scenery, characters and events were skillfully done. I had not previously read any of James Wilde's novels but will definitely read Hereward, and others he may write. Maybe there were slight lapses in accuracy, but I read this book purely for enjoyment and it did not disappoint.

In 1067, following his victory at the Battle of Hastings, the Norman king is determined to impose his rule on the English natives. One man, however, rises to lead a rebellion and based in the impenetrable Fenland gathers a motley army. Hereward is determined that the English should stand to the last man to defend their country, but finds that there is much more to being a leader than fighting. The leader of the Norman army, nicknamed The Butcher, is equally determined to overcome, and with spies and double-dealing springing up on both sides, the war for England will be long and bloody. I enjoy historical fiction, but my preference tends to be for something less violent than this novel. I totally understand that this era was brutal and that any writer portraying it must show his reader what went on, but this book felt to me like 80% violence, 10% plot and 10% characterisation. The violence in the book is graphic and frequent, but I didn’t find it as shocking as I expected to as I had no connection to the characters and didn’t really care what happened to them. This may largely be due to the fact that I haven’t read the author’s previous book on Hereward, or it may be due to what I felt was the lack of characterisation in the book. The characters seemed very black and white to me, and I didn’t think that they developed during the course of the novel. I also didn’t feel that there was all that much plot. There are lots of battles and lots of milling about in the Fens, but though there are lots of incidents throughout the book, I didn’t think that the plot had really moved forward by the end. I got a bit fed up of chapters opening with bloated corpses floating in the Fens – it probably only happened a couple of times, but it felt like more. I get the impression that this book is the second in a trilogy and it felt a bit like a placeholder in which the author didn’t want to use up too much plot in case he didn’t have enough left for the last volume in his set. I have an antipathy to historical trilogy novels at the moment as I’ve read a few recently where enough material for perhaps two books is being stretched to make three, and where the first and second books don’t feel finished, simply because the plot has to be left fluid enough for a sequel. After reading this book I didn’t feel like anything had really happened in it as everyone and everything was pretty much the same at the end as it was at the beginning. The end of the book felt like it just stopped, rather than finished in a satisfying way. It also seems like it’s a boys’ book. There are some women in it, but they are portrayed largely as overtly sexual beings or as witch-like with supernatural powers. There is also a male wish-fulfilment sub-plot with two beautiful and powerful women competing for Hereward’s attention. I know that women did have a subservient role during the historical era portrayed in the book, but the novel’s sketches of these female characters seemed old-fashioned to me and not something written in the 21st century. There was one very small part of the book that I enjoyed – a bit of an aha! moment – but I can’t go into that as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. Unfortunately that was the only part I did enjoy. I felt quite exasperated while reading it and so was glad when it was over. I won’t be rushing to read the first or last books in the trilogy. So, in short, very much not the novel for me, but other opinions are available and will probably be very different from mine. . I received this book as part of the Transworld Historical Fiction Challenge.