We have winners to announce! Leslie and Julie won the 2 copies of MY FAIR VIKING that Sandra is giving away! Thanks to everyone for visiting! And don't forget to stop by our HUGE forum launch tomorrow as we celebrate 14 Days of Love!
Sandra Hill, NYT and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels, historical, time travel, and contemporary, including her most recent VIKING IN LOVE.
I am always amazed when I find people who have never read a Viking novel. This was brought home to me in recent days as I blogged at various reader sites, especially ones with avid historical romance readers.
What is it about Norsemen that some readers resist? Could it be the biased reports of monk historians of that time have painted an unattractive (and inaccurate) picture? I can say for a fact that all that raping and pillaging was not the norm, and certainly they were no more vicious than other societies of the tenth century where they on occasion skinned a person alive and pinned the skin to a church door. Vikings lived in a country that was not suitable for farming, and as it became overcrowded, they searched for other countries to settle. And, okay, maybe they conquered the country before settling. But this is a fact, they melded into those societies (marrying and having children) with the more-than-willing women.
That's another reason Vikings got a bad rap. Not only were they better looking, but they bathed more often than Saxon men who resented their women flocking to them. So, maybe the Saxon histories were a bit biased toward them, too.
Viking men were known to be hunks, and that's a historical fact. Tall, good looking, brave, loyal, virile, great shipbuilders and seamen, and they had a great sense of humor, as evidenced by their sagas. You've got to love a man who can laugh at himself.
I first got interested in Vikings when working on a family genealogy where I amazingly was able to trace my roots all the way back to the tenth century and Hrolf the Ganger, first duke of Normandy (then called Norsemandy). After writing more than fifteen novels about Vikings, you'd think I would run out of story lines. Not so!
In VIKING IN LOVE, February, 2010, my first book for Avon and a return by me to my first love, historical romance, I borrowed a theme from the Dixie Chicks. Yes, I said Dixie Chicks in a medieval novel. In the video "Goodbye Earl," the singers kill the abusive husband of one of them and dump him in a lake. In my story, five Viking princesses kill the abusive husband of tne of them...an earl, of course...and dump him in the funniest place. After that they are on the run until they land in the rundown castle of the Saxon knight Caedmon of Larkspur who has ten motherless children.
Here's a short excerpt:
Breanne's shoulders slumped. Then she straightened and turned,
fluttering her eyelashes at him. "Wouldst care to walk in the
garden with me?"
Oh, nay! She could not mean to seduce me. Never in a million
years! Although... "What garden?"
"The rose garden."
"I have a rose garden?"
"Forget the bloody garden."
Progress! I got the wench to swear.
"Dost want to walk or not?" As if an idea had come to her belatedly, she fluttered her eyelashes at him. Again.
With any other woman, he would think she was flirting. With Breanne, he had to assume she had soot in her eyes.
"We will walk," he said, standing suddenly and holding his arm out for her. He was intrigued to know what she was up to.
Please stop by my website at www.sandrahill.net for news, videos, free novellas, and freebies. And to two lucky people who visited here at my blog, I will send signed copies of MY FAIR VIKING, a prequel (of sorts...they are stand alone books) to VIKING IN LOVE.
As always wishing you smiles in your reading.
2009
