Beyond the Dragonhead

Viking Refugees, Book 1

De: Kelly Nichols, Alyn Rockwood

Narrado por: Aaron Nichols

Northern Europe, 1000 AD. Thyra Andersdotter has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Spending countless hours in the forest learning archery and foraging for herbs, the 15-year-old healer is happiest in nature. But a routine walk with her father turns tragic when they return home to find their village burned and most everyone killed or taken.

Fleeing with their wounded kinsmen, Thyra despairs that her modest skill won’t be enough to save a handsome young warrior. And with her father the target of a wicked king’s vengeance, she fears nowhere they can go will be safe.

Can Thyra and her clan reach refuge before the barbaric ruler cuts them down?

Beyond the Dragonhead is the exciting first book in the Viking Refugees YA historical fiction series. If you like valiant characters, epic adventures, and rich period detail, then you’ll love Kelly Nichols and Alyn Rockwood’s sweeping tale of Norse bravery.

©2020 Kelly Nichols and Alyn Rockwood (P)2022 Kelly Nichols and Alyn Rockwood

A great Viking adventure

Anders Sundstrom has retired from his Viking life, but as often happens his earlier deeds comes back to haunt him.
This story is an adventure in its truest form. Thyra, her father Anders Sundstrom, and the rest of the cast must flee, and sets out on a long voyage. All the way they are being hunted by King Skötkonung’s men (Olof Skötkonung is a real historical figure who is known for being the king who brought Christianity to Sweden). The story is descriptive and very well researched, blending fiction and real historical knowledge in a great way.

The group ends up traveling the rivers towards Kiev, and faces a lot of dangers on the way, as is expected for a small band of travellers with just a few warriors among them. The characters are believable and likable, although not very complex, and the places they visit are very well portrayed. It was great to travel with them into the eastern part of the Viking world, as that part of Viking history is not well known to me. I really enjoyed the description about how the rulers, and people, lived by the trading routes towards Kiev. And this is also the greatest asset of this story – the experience of traveling with the characters to all these great places.

Some word choices threw me off here and there, and I did not quite understand how a few things in the action scenes could happen, but that is minor issues in the larger picture of a great adventure story.

The narrator had a voice that was easy to listen to and did a fine job. However, a little more emotion and variation of tone would have lifted the experience even more.

Well done.