Eight-and-a-half thousand years ago, islands that were remnants of Doggerland which had connected the British Isles to the European Continent, remained in the North Sea. A tsunami caused by undersea land slips drowned these islands. This novel imagines the tsunami did not come and the island chain that stretched across the North Sea between Britain and Scandinavia continued. From the time of Roman Emperor Augustus to the 21st Century each chapter is set in a different year of the islands’ history envisaging their fate caught up in the ebb and flow of power across the North Sea. The islands are discovered by the Romans, settled by the Jutes, raided by Vikings, warred over by the Normans and rulers from the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire. They become the focus of conspiracies and invasions through the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and on to the Second World War.

Mixing speculation with thorough research the novel brings alive the lives and culture of the people of these alternate history islands in a realistic way not simply envisaging the political context but the religious, economic, industrial, social and even ecological aspects of their development down the centuries. Each chapter is an engaging story in this context which unfolds the story of these islands which could have existed.

Alexander Rooksmoor has been writing alternate history fiction for over twenty years, based on a career researching and teaching history. In this full length novel he shows how a geological alteration could have led to the persistence of lands which have been missing from our human history. While filling the book with carefully-considered ‘what if?’ developments, he also provides rich characters to engage with, as they work to survive the challenges of this alternate history and thrive on the islands strung out across the inhospitable North Sea.

NOTE: This book is a well-rounded alternate history novel which means it looks at the impact of a different history on the lives of numerous characters. Consequently it is more like a book by Harry Turtledove rather than a book by Peter Tsouras. While it involves some battle scenes, this is not a book simply of military action that just lists various units and how they might have fought against each other. If you are looking simply for a book outlining alternative battles then this book is not for you.