The King of the North is coming . . .
The fourth novel in my Fire Born series – aka King of the North – is being published this week. It seems a long time since my last Viking novel (The Loki Sword) came out and, indeed, is has been about 13 months. But KOTN is here at last, in paperback, eBook and audio forms. I hope you find that the wait has been worth it!
In case you don’t yet know what the book is about, I’d better give you a few details. It concerns the involvement of my two heroes, Bjarki Bloodhand and Torfinna Hildarsdottir, in the legendary battle of Brávellir between the Swedes and the Danes which took place sometime in the 8th century. It was a terrible slaughter, with thousands dead and wounded, and Saxo Grammaticus, a 12th-century Danish historian described the battlefield thus: “The steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under a hail of spears.” (Trans. Oliver Elton). I haven’t followed the legend exactly, and indeed the battle may never have taken place at all, I just took some of the more interesting elements of the traditional Norse story and made my own tale out of them. (I do this quite a lot in my Viking novels!)
Anyway, this is the blurb from the back of the book:
A clash of crowns pits brother against sister in the battle for ultimate power
An ambitious king
Spring, AD 777. Sigurd Hring, new King of the Svear, is summoning all the greatest warriors of the North to his banner, promising them riches and glory. He invites Bjarki Bloodhand, the famous berserkr who can summon the fury of a wild bear in battle, to swear an oath of fealty to him. But Bjarki has already sailed away to rescue a beautiful Saxon princess.
A reluctant shield maiden
Tor Hildarsdottir, sister of Bjarki, now oath-bound to a powerful Svealand jarl, finds herself unwillingly enrolled in Sigurd’s mighty army. When Sigurd Hring arrogantly rejects the overlordship of Siegfried, King of the Dane-Mark, red war is inevitable.
The battle to end all battles
The two sides agree to meet on the field of honour at Norrkoping on the Svealand border. But Bjarki has sworn an oath to Siegfried and joined his Danish host, while Tor must fight for her lord and homeland. So the siblings will face each other over the shield-rims in a battle to end all battles to decide who shall be… King of the North.
I hope you will enjoy the book, and if you do please take the time to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere. It really helps to get the word out. King of the North (Fire Born 4) is available here. The eBook of The Loki Sword (Fire Born 3) is now only £1.99 on Amazon, if you need to do some catching up.
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