Review: The Falcon Confession by John V. Norris

What he saw shocked him to the core. Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, the Subregulus of England, the commander of the royal army, and the man who rescued Aidan from certain death, shook like a Devil-possessed child. His chest raised and lowered in disjointed breathes and his blue eyes searched everywhere and nowhere at once.

If you are reading or have read this book it is due to the fact you have an interest in the history leading up to and including the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Events here are taking place in the years before - Harold is not yet King but a powerful earl, the Normans are still on the other side of the Channel, plotting and planning.

So simply, the story of the invasion is told in alternating narrative: Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother to Duke William, and who comes across as truly odious; Aidan, a novice at Bosham (co-incidently the principal residence of Harold); Edith Swanneck, Harold's hand-fast wife and mother of a number of his offspring; and lastly, that of Harold himself, a man tormented, whose narrative is in the form of recollection or confession, as is dictated to Aidan in the presence of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester.

And it is this shocking confession that is at the heart of the story - the Falcon Confession - what secret is slowly being revealed by Harold and what ruin will it bring. It is for Aidan and Edith to protect and at costs, not allow it to fall into the clutches of Bishop Odo..

The various alternating narratives given an overall picture of what was happening in both Normandy and England at the times from both the Norman and Anglo-Saxon perspectives. One character that was notable due to his absence was King Edward the Confessor - a man surely at the heart of the succession crisis that lead to the Conquest.

It is a complex and fascinating period of history, and this fictional tome will add another dimension.