Literature & Fiction

She’s cursed with a dead witch’s power over fate, he’s a heartless demigod born for revenge and redemption. Once her enemy, now a conflict of interest. The fate of the Nine Realms dangles on a dangerously thin thread.

Fate was cruel enough by dealing Ailsa with a fatal illness. But when her father and sisters are killed at war, she becomes the Last Daughter in a long line of shieldmages. This power comes with a price, however, coincidentally getting her kidnapped by an elfin she’s only heard of through legends.

Vali’s realm is dying, inflicted by the black magic, sedir, and the only way to heal his land is by delivering the Tether to Odin, king of the gods. When he finds this power bound inside a mortal woman, he is forced to bring her and her shapeshifting wolven back to his home in Alfheim.

But their journey across the Tree of Life is perilous, and betrayal is imminent. Vali and Ailsa must depend on each other for survival, a mutual dependency that turns into a passionate love affair. With Odin waiting on this promised power, a kindred spirit found in her enemy, and a dark threat neither Ailsa nor Vali intended to find in the bright lands of Alfheim, what started as a simple quest has turned into a fight to save all gods, mortals, and fae alike. Vikings meets magic in this fresh retelling of Norse Mythology.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Midnight Tide Publishing (August 19, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 394 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 195867303X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1958673034
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.17 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.99 x 8.5 inches

This is a compilation of legendary sagas that survive only in a fragmentary or reduced state. It begins with the Fragment of a Saga of Certain Ancient Kings of Denmark and Sweden, an account of the lives of such legendary conquerors as Ivar Wide-Grasp, his grandson and successor Harald Wartooth, and the latter’s vanquisher and successor, Sigurd Hring, father of the more famous Ragnar Shaggy-breeches. The saga as we have it lacks both a beginning and an end, although context has been provided from other sources that relate the reigns of the same legendary kings. The climax of the saga must be the titanic Battle of Bravellir, a legendary battle that occurred sometime before the Viking Age (its dates are notoriously uncertain), brought about when the then king of Denmark and Sweden, Harald Wartooth, in his old age, made war on his son in law Sigurd Hring. To this battle came heroes and warriors and Vikings, some of whom have sagas of their own, like Odd the Wanderer (aka Arrow Odd, whose saga is also available in this series),or Starkad the Old, whose own saga has been lost, (assuming it was ever written ), but who appears like a dark shadow on the edges of other narratives. Blessed by Odin, cursed by Thor, this huge, dour warrior battled his way through lifetimes in the legendary age, and the battle of Bravellir was only one of the occasions in which he showed his strength.Sigurd Hring was the victor at Bravellir, and after a long reign, mortally wounded in battle, he set sail in a burning ship—one of the only two ‘Viking funerals’ known to the sagas, the other being that of Haki. The saga breaks off, however, before this point. Where it would have gone after that remains a mystery, although the next logical step would be to relate the story of Ragnar Shaggy-breeches, whose own saga happily has survived.Also present in this volume are three other narratives concerning legendary Scandinavian kings, traditionally linked together under the title ‘Of Fornjot and his Family.’ Firstly comes the story of Fornjot and his sons, Hler, Logi and Kari. Hler gave his name to the Danish isle of Laeso (Hlesey) and appears elsewhere in Norse mythology as the sea giant Aegir, husband of Ran who catches drowned sailors in her net. Logi’s name means ‘fire’ (in the Prose Edda he bests Loki in an eating contest) and Kari is a personification of the wind. Fornjot’s own name is uncertain, but it could mean ‘the old giant’. They are clearly giants, and mythological personages, and their descendants are equally legendary. The same story reappears, however, at the beginning of the Saga of the Orkneymen, and this version follows the first in this volume. We conclude with the story of the kings of the Upplands (Opland in modern Sweden) descendants of that Ingjald the Ill-Advised who is mentioned in the earlier Fragment. Although this account does not mention him, the same line produced Harald Finehair, who was first king of all Norway, and whose legendary lineages take up much of the first of the three stories.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CL16NNCT
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (October 13, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 98 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8864280416
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.23 x 8 inches