James Aitcheson

James Aitcheson is an English historical novelist and medievalist whose fiction specialises in the Norman Conquest and its violent aftermath. Born in Wiltshire in 1985, he studied History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he developed a particular interest in the Middle Ages, and later completed a doctorate in Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. His historical knowledge gives his novels a convincing sense of eleventh-century warfare, political instability and divided loyalties, while his narratives remain driven by action, intrigue and the experiences of individuals caught between the Norman conquerors and the dispossessed English.

Aitcheson’s Conquest series follows the ambitious Norman knight Tancred a Dinant in the years immediately after the Battle of Hastings. Sworn Sword begins amid rebellion in Northumbria in 1069; The Splintered Kingdom moves the story to the Welsh Marches in 1070; and Knights of the Hawk follows the campaign against the English resistance in the Fens in 1071. His standalone novel The Harrowing presents the same period from a different perspective, following five English refugees fleeing William the Conqueror’s devastating campaign in northern England. Together, these novels explore conquest from both sides, portraying not only battles and political rivalry but also displacement, survival, vengeance and the moral compromises demanded by a conquered country.