The King's Forest Burns
A Medieval Legal Thriller

About this book:

When a royal hart is found gutted in the King's forest with a cryptic message stuffed in its gullet, verderer Geoffrey of Broke expects a poaching case. Instead, he uncovers a conspiracy written in the King's own seal: a clerk of the Wardrobe sent to burn the ancient woods to the bedrock, clearing the way for the Crown to sell the land and fund a foreign war. With the forest ablaze around them and mercenaries cutting off every escape, Geoffrey must drag his prisoner through a landscape turning to ash—pursued by the very men who lit the fire, hunted by the law he serves, and racing against a blaze that moves faster than a galloping horse.

In a realm where the Charter of the Forest is the only shield between the peasant and the axe, Geoffrey navigates a treacherous court of greedy abbots, Welsh marauders, and the King's own justiciars. Every clue—a lead tally, a broken oil jar stamped with the royal star, a slow-match burning in a clerk's hand—drags him deeper into a scheme that reaches from the charcoal pits of Wyre to the counting-houses of Ghent. The law says deliver the malefactor to the sheriff. The fire says run. And the King's own men are blocking the gates.

*The King's Forest Burns* is a medieval legal thriller that breathes smoke and sweat into the dusty statutes of 13th-century England. For readers who love the historical immersion of C.J. Sansom and the relentless pace of a chase through burning woods, this is a novel where the forest itself is a character—ancient, lethal, and burning with secrets that could topple a kingdom.