Estrid

The epic Valhalla saga continues as bloody power struggles sweep across the Nordic lands and a Viking queen’s daughter must forge her own destiny.

Fearless Queen Sigrid wants her twin children to fulfill their destinies: her son, Olaf, to become heir to the kingdom of Svealand, and her gifted daughter, Estrid, to secure passage to the underworld as she is promised to Hel, the Norse goddess of death. But Olaf’s ascension to the throne depends on Sigrid’s former husband, King Erik the Victorious, who despises her and suspects the twins are not his but Sweyn Forkbeard’s, Denmark’s exiled king.

As long as the Danish throne is in question, Christian kingdoms and pagan clans battle for control. As Sigrid and her people await Erik’s return from war, a cross-worshipper is taken captive, whose strange power over Estrid sways her to question her allegiance to the death goddess. When Estrid is kidnapped, Sigrid vows to rescue her—at any cost.

Johanne Hildebrandt is an award-winning war correspondent and author. Her breakthrough came with her bestselling trilogy, Sagan om Valhalla (the Story of Valhalla), and Fördömd (The Condemned). In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious journalist award Guldspaden (Golden Shovel) for her book Blackout, which describes her ten years as a Bosnian War correspondent. She was also nominated for the Grand Journalist Prize following her accounts of the war in Iraq. In 2012, she was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences—the first woman admitted to the academy, which was founded in 1796. Estrid and The Unbroken Line of the Moon (in The Valhalla Series) are her first two novels translated into English.