The Sea Queen

A seafaring epic with bloodcurdling raids and political intrigue to spare... Svanhild emerges as a complicated, talented, and shrewd warrior in her own right... Hartsuyker is a skilled storyteller, and the moral battles her characters wrestle with on and off the battlefield add compelling psychological depth to an old and epic tale - Kirkus Reviews Hartsuyker's second volume in her trilogy (after The Half-Drowned King) continues the saga of Ragnvald Eysteinsson... but Svanhild proves that Norse women can be just as vicious and cunning as Norse men.... this is an ambitious tale of Norwegian medieval warfare told in richly colorful and accurate historical detail. Hartsuyker's novel reveals just how tenuous life is when disputes are settled with sword and battle-axe - Publishers Weekly Through her multifaceted characters, Hartsuyker adeptly evokes female alliances, the complications of love and passion, and vengeance both terrible and triumphant as she effectively juggles many subplots and settings, from Norway's harsh, picturesque coast to sulfurous Iceland and Dublin's muddy harbor - Booklist This is historical fiction at its best and shouldn't be missed...Hartsuyker adds a rich, Shakespearean approach to characters and politics...All three main characters, Svanhild particularly, are so beautifully realized in their intelligence and emotional development that the descriptions of sea voyages, battles, and mead hall law-wrangling mesh seamlessly with the more personal stories - Editors Choice, Historical Novels Review