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A Times Book of the Year ‘A literary, intelligent read from a masterful storyteller’
In 1035, a young fifteen year old Viking is dragged wounded from the battle. Left for dead, for the next twenty years his adventures lead him over mountains, down the length of Russia and ultimately to Constantinople and the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Drawn into political intrigue he will be the lover of Empresses, the murderer of an emperor; he will hold the balance of power in the Byzantine Empire in his hands, and then give it all up for a Russian princess and the chance to return home and lead his own people, where he must fight the demons of his past, his family and his countrymen in a long and bitter war for revenge and power.
Told in his own voice, this is the astonishing true story of the most famous warrior in all Christendom: Harald Hardrada, the last Viking.
In 1035, a young fifteen year old Viking is dragged wounded from the battle. Left for dead, for the next twenty years his adventures lead him over mountains, down the length of Russia and ultimately to Constantinople and the Holy City of Jerusalem.
Drawn into political intrigue he will be the lover of Empresses, the murderer of an emperor; he will hold the balance of power in the Byzantine Empire in his hands, and then give it all up for a Russian princess and the chance to return home and lead his own people, where he must fight the demons of his past, his family and his countrymen in a long and bitter war for revenge and power.
Told in his own voice, this is the astonishing true story of the most famous warrior in all Christendom: Harald Hardrada, the last Viking.
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Reviews
Gripping
Fights aplenty, but this is a literary, intelligent read from a masterly storyteller
Viking Fire is a sophisticated, subtle evocation of a brutal age
Justin Hill's energetic re-creation of Hardrada's career shows that his was an extraordinary life . . . gripping
This evocative tale of war and glory draws us into a Viking world of heroic frozen battlegrounds and treacherous perfumed palaces
Justin Hill's writing is superb. Every sentence is crafted for balance and beauty and the sense of a world on the edge of turning is gloriously, brilliantly - and utterly believably - evoked