Michael Wills
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Michael Wills was born in Newport on the Isle of Wight, UK and attended the Priory Boys’ School and later Carisbrooke Grammar. On leaving school he trained as a teacher at St Peter’s College, Birmingham, before teaching mathematics and physical education for two years at a rural secondary school in Kent.
After deciding that he would like to teach abroad, he re-trained to become a teacher of English as a Foreign Language and got a one year contract to work in Sweden, a country he learned to love. In fact he stayed there for thirteen years. In 1979 he returned to the UK with his wife Barbro and their three daughters to start a language school, the Salisbury School of English. From small beginnings the school developed into a substantial business enterprise. Michael retired in 2008 after over forty years in the field of education. Along the way, he was President of Salisbury Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Co-Chair of English UK, the national association of English language training providers. Currently, he is employed part-time as Ombudsman for English UK and life has never been busier. He divides his spare time between enjoying his grandchildren and indulging his interests in writing, carpentry, amateur radio and sailing. He has had a life-long interest in history and in particular that of the Viking period which eventually led him to the academic and field research for his first two novels about this turbulent time in English and Scandinavian history.
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Finn's Fate
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Historical Fiction
A towering and exhilarating Norse saga, Finn's Fate plunges the reader into the harsh and violent world of the tenth century AD, in which base survival overrides all other human desires, but is closely hounded by wanderlust, greed and desire. After a disastrous fire ruins their homestead, Finn and his two brothers set out on a dangerous journey toward the Land of the Danes in search of adventure and a better life, a road that takes them into the realm of King Erik of Sweden, slavery and an apparent loss of all hope. The events that follow bring this saga to a dramatic conclusion, and at the same time throw light on the modern mystery of a mass grave in the Dorset countryside… 
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Three Kings - One Throne
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Historical Fiction
The crown of England was the most contested in Europe, this is the story of the two men and the masters they served. In a panoramic novel against a backdrop of violence and political turbulence in the eleventh century, Ivar, a Danish orphan is enslaved to the most successful and experienced soldier of the age. He eventually becomes one of the elite bodyguard of the Emperor of Turkey. Meanwhile his distant relative, Torkil, the grandson of an Anglo Norse thayne, advances his military career in the service of Harold Godwinson. History dictates that one day the two warriors, caught up in the maelstrom of treachery, carnage, greed, lust and loyalty, will meet. When they do, there are devastating results for one of them, his king and his country. The crown of England was the most contested in all Europe; on the death of Edward the Confessor, Harold Godwinsson took possession of it. In 1066 two other claimants to the throne, a Norwegian and a Norman tried to wrest it from him. This is the story of Ivar, Torkil and the three kings they served. 
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The Wessex Turncoat
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Historical Fiction
Aaron Mew is a seventeen year-old apprentice blacksmith living in a small Hampshire village, in the late eighteenth century. His life is simple yet secure, until the day when he volunteers to take the place of his father on an errand for the squire. The country boy is wrenched from the environment in which he grew up and thrust into a world of ruffians, drunks, criminals and disgraced professionals – the army of George III. An army desperately short of men, but with the huge ambition to quell the rebellion in America and to retain the country under British rule. After relentless training, Aaron’s regiment, the 62nd Regiment of Foot, is posted to Canada. There, fighting side by side with Indian braves and German allies, the boy soldier becomes a hardened warrior. He finds honour, though no glory, true comradeship and eventually, love. The Wessex Turncoat tells the story, based on fact, of a doomed army and a regiment which is decimated, mainly because of the vanity and intransigence of an English general.
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