Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Land Divided | 2015 | K.M. Ashman | Buy |
| 2 | A Wounded Realm | 2016 | K.M. Ashman | Buy |
| 3 | Rebellion’s Forge | 2017 | K.M. Ashman | Buy |
| 4 | The Warrior Princess | 2017 | K.M. Ashman | Buy |
| 5 | The Blade Bearer | 2018 | K.M. Ashman | Buy |
The Blood of Kings series opens with A Land Divided (2015), set during the Norman colonisation of Wales when the English king’s armies are pressing hard against the remaining Welsh kingdoms. Gruffydd ap Cynan — raised in Ireland and only recently returned to Wales — must forge alliances from rival and suspicious chieftains, fight on multiple fronts, and survive the betrayals that inevitably accompany any campaign for power. Ashman draws on the real historical record of Gruffydd’s reign while giving the story room to dramatise scenes and characters that history left undocumented.
The series runs to five books (2015–2018), each pushing further into the struggle to maintain Welsh sovereignty against Norman expansion. Ashman’s approach is sympathetic to both the Welsh perspective and the complexity of the historical moment: the Normans are not simple villains, and the Welsh leaders are not simple heroes. The result is the kind of historical fiction that builds a world rather than just a story.
K.M. Ashman brings his characteristic fast pacing to a period of history that English-language fiction has often neglected in favour of the Norman and English perspectives on the same events.