Today, I’m featuring a very hard to come by setting for Christian Historical Fiction–Vikings!
God’s Daughter Blurb:
One Viking woman. One God. One legendary journey to North America.
In the tenth century, when pagan holy women rule the Viking lands, Gudrid turns her back on her training as a seeress to embrace Christianity. Clinging to her faith, she joins her husband, Finn, on a voyage to North America.
But even as Gudrid faces down murderous crewmen, raging sickness, and hostile natives, she realizes her greatest enemy is herself–and the secrets she hides might just tear her marriage apart.
Almost five centuries before Columbus, Viking women sailed to North America with their husbands. God’s Daughter, Book One in the Vikings of the New World Saga, offers an expansive yet intimate look into the world of Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir–daughter-in-law of Eirik the Red, and the first documented European woman to have a child in North America.
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Questions about Heather’s Book
What inspired your story?
A real Viking Christian woman, Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, who sailed with her husband to North America–with a crew comprised mostly of men. I had to ask why she did it. Especially since she had a baby over here. And she’s the daughter-in-law of Eirik the Red, who I’m supposedly related to. So I loved learning her story. Oh, and did I mention she was twice widowed and on her third husband when she sailed? Lots of great bones to her story in the sagas–I loved fleshing them out.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Delving into what makes marriages tick–the experiences that can make or break them. Trying to show that Vikings weren’t so different from us in their motivations and dreams.
Did you stumble upon anything in your research for this book that made you squirm?
Yes. But that’s coming up in my follow-up novel, Forest Child. Let’s just say I have a bit of an uncontrollable wild child main character in that, and I have to figure out why she did what she historically did.
Where is your home on the web?
http://heatherdaygilbert.com/
Wow. Good question. I’d say the book closest to mine in point-of-view (first person) and love relationships would be When Mountains Move, by Julie Cantrell. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of married main characters in the CBA.What Christian Historical Novel in your To Be Read pile is begging you to make time to plop down with it right now?
What was the last Christian Historical Novel whose characters stayed in your head days after you finished reading it?
