How wonderful! At long, long last, a novel set in the Arthurian age that 'tells it like it was.' I picked up on the Arthurian references at once when I read AN EAST WIND BLOWING. It lends a whole dimension to this book to know that just 'out west,' maybe a couple of hundred miles away, at the same time as Ronan and Bryn are finding ways to survive, a warlord by the name of Artos is taking on the Saxons. But I digress!! This review is supposed to be about Bryn and Ronan themselves, and the story of EAST WIND. The research leaves you gaping ... and I may be wrong, but I think MK has either lived a long while up on the NE coast of Britland, or else may be from those parts?? Something in the way he describes the landscape speaks to me ... and I'm from Leeds originally. It can't have been easy crafting such young characters and making them credible and 'involving' in an adult context. The cover GMP put on this book also didn't help: they gave it the appearance of a 'juvenile,' and it most certainly is NOT. Not by a very long stretch of the imagination! The storyline was vastly involving. If I have a criticism, it's simply that EAST WIND is too short IMHO ... it needed to be a lot longer! It needed to go on from the in-print-conclusion and relate what happened to Bryn and Ronan and Gareth next. Or is that me being selfish, because I liked these characters so much? Seriously, this time in British history has been a favourite if mine since I was a little kid, and I fell in love with a Saturday afternoon programme on the tube, 'Arthur of the Britons.' So it was sheer heaven to have a really good (and very gay) adventure set in this world. Rating: don't miss!