This history-based tale behind the legend of Good King Wenceslas is a thrilling journey through 10th-century Bohemia. Wenceslas devoted his life to charity-but this is no happy Christmas fable.

Duke Boleslav, brother to Wenceslas, reveals to his young son his own life’s dreadful tale, and why this boy must dedicate his life to his father’s salvation.

Pagan priests vie with one another and with the growing power of Christianity. Prague is a trading center with an important slave market, a thriving iron industry, and is a crossroads of far-reaching trade routes. It is growing in wealth, yet threatened by jealous enemies and forces, both external and within its borders.

These are times of struggle and competition. The Franks seek domination through military and religious power, and smaller peoples are conquered or forced to find a way to survive.

This chilling new story of a dark age paints a tale of murder, betrayal, loyalty and mankind’s need for spirituality.

History and this writer’s imagination take Boleslav through a world of cruel despair and hope as the duke’s power-driven mother coerces him to commit the unthinkable.

Two years ago I reviewed I Jonathan by George WB Scott and he has kindly allowed me to read his latest work, The Good King, which has a scheduled publication date of 14th September 2023.

Most of us will have sung or heard the carol Good King Wenceslas about a famous Bohemian Duke of the 10th Century who went out in the snow with his page to deliver food and firewood to the poor. Scott has researched the true story of Wenceslas and his brother Boleslaus although he uses their Czech names of Vaclav and Boleslav. If you are not familiar with the events can I urge you not to rush to your computer for the true story; read the book first, without spoilers.

To tell the tale, Scott uses a similar technique to that used in I Jonathan where the story is narrated in the first person relaying a narrative from an ageing person. In this case the narrator is Kristian, aka Strachkvas, a teenage nobleman and scholar who has been summoned to visit his father Boleslav, Duke of Bohemia. Over several sessions during the visit Boleslav recounts the events of his tumultuous life including the story of his brother Vaclav (Wenceslas) who was Duke before him. Early in the book I was sometimes confused as to who was talking but I got used to it.

Bohemia, with Prague as its capital, covered an area in central Europe roughly where the Czech Republic is today and through his lively narrative Scott gives us a good description of life at that time. Christianity was competing with traditional pagan practices and the smaller European states were constantly under pressure from their stronger neighbours who frequently demanded tributes of cash, food and treasure under threat of invasion. We also learn about the day to day lives of the ordinary folk. I particularly enjoyed the details of the iron and firework production by people who knew what the earth could achieve with very little of the scientific knowledge we have today.

As far as I can tell, The Good King is historically accurate but narrating it in this way we get an insight into Boleslav’s actions and how he might have felt about them afterwards. Henceforth when I hear or sing the carol, Good King Wenceslas I will remember the page by his real name of Podevin. I have awarded 4.5 stars for this entertaining read.

George WB Scott was born in Stuart, Florida where he lived until he went to college in North Carolina. He graduated from Appalachian State University and went into television news in Tennessee. He is now an independent video producer and writer, and lives in Knoxville with his wife Mary Leidig.

His childhood memoir “Growing Up In Eden” explores experiences of his youth and of Martin County during the 1960s and 1970s. It includes more than a hundred photographs, mostly taken by the author just before the 2004 hurricanes, and has a CD with a screensaver of photographs and music by Gatlinburg acoustic guitarist Bill Mize.

Scott’s first novel is “I Jonathan, a Charleston Tale of the Rebellion.” It explores the American Civil War through the eyes of an orphaned young man from Boston who is marooned in Charleston just as the war begins.

His next novel “The Good King, A Medieval Thriller” published by Black Rose Writing will be released in September of 2023. The story of the lives of Saint Wenceslas and his brother Duke Boleslav the Cruel are told in a violent land of pagans and early Christians in the changing realm of 10th-century Bohemia.