Book Review | The Last Saxon King

The Last Saxon King was a book I got from NetGalley in September. I’m not entirely sure why, except it involves time travel. It took me a while to read it as I stopped for several weeks early on. Not my cup of tea.

The Last Saxon King (Jump in Time #1)

by Andrew Varga

One jump to save all time.

When Dan Renfrew is accidentally transported to England in the year 1066, he also learns a startling fact. He’s a time jumper, descended from a long line of secret heroes who protect the present by traveling to the past to fix breaks and glitches in the time stream. To get home alive, Dan must try to restore history, but he soon discovers even bigger challenges than suspicious Anglo-Saxons, marauding Vikings, and invading Normans. A band of malicious time jumpers is threatening the very future of the universe.

A Note From the Publisher
The first in a six book series. The second book, The Celtic Deception will be published in September 2023 (goodreads)

My Review

From about chapter five onwards, this is a great adventure novel with a time travel twist and young love abounding. It’s also full of graphic violence, although totally in keeping with the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings. If you happen to be the idiot from the future who has to fight in them, that is.

The first four chapters are where Dan works out that he’s travelled in time, that people are suspicious of a time traveller from the 21st century who lands in their midst. It takes him even longer to work out he has to work for a living, that nothing comes from the shop, that they speak differently (although his time travel gadget solves that problem).

And he must be the whiniest person to discover he’s down to be a superhero you can imagine.

I’ve been allergic to the rash of ‘boy turns x years, discovers his superpowers and goes to school to find out how to use them’ school of MG novel for some time. Dan is just another, although his dad has been training him without any explanation for years. So it turns out that once Dan starts using his head, and trusting the wonderful sidekick Sam, he’s pretty good at Anglo-Saxon warfare.

But Andrew Varga knows his stuff, expounds on the fighting that’s about to happen, and has a neat subplot in the time war. He writes well, and thrillingly. I hope the rest of the series (No 2 coming later this year) is as good. At least it won’t have too much of the whiny stuff, I hope.