Novels of the Norse - Viking Fiction

Between the 8th and 11th century, the Vikings swept out of Scandinavia, raiding and trading from the Middle East to North America. It was a turbulent time filled with technological advances, religious turmoil and more than a few battles. The following books are set in this turbulent and tense period and offer some great action and memorable characters.

Robert Low’s The Whale Road opens with narrator, Orm Rurikson, narrowly surviving a murder attempt. Joining his father and a band of Viking warriors known as the Oathsworn on their search for a mythic treasure, Orm learns that fame and intrigue can be perilous.

Judith Lindbergh sets her bleak and haunting, The Thrall’s Tale, during the Viking colonization of Greenland. Katla, an Irish slave; Bibrau, her daughter born of a rape; and their benefactor, Thorbjorg, a norse priestess, labor to eke out an existence at the far edge of the Viking world.

Bernard Cornwell has written the Uhtred / King Alfred the Great series of three novels: The Last Kingdom, Pale Horseman and Lords of the North. King Alfred is engaged in a desperate war against the Vikings and Uhtred, a dispossessed English nobleman, comes to his aid.

The Corban Loose-Strife series, by Cecilia Holland, centers around Corban and his sister, Mav, and what happens when their village is plundered by the Vikings and they are both taken captive. The books in this series are Soul Thief, Witches’ Kitchen and Serpent Dreamer. Meg

[Thanks go to Neal Wyatt for his article in a recent Library Journal. Click on titles to check availability.]