In 1019, after burying her husband in Greenland, Bergthora Bjornsdóttir returns to Iceland to exact her revenge for a violent act she suffered as a young girl. But in her hunger for vengeance she drives Engilborg, the young wife of Egill—a powerful and ruthless chieftain—into the arms of her uncle, Leif, shattering the lives of family and friends in the rural community along Hvamms Fjord. Kjartan, Engilborg’s father—who spent 15 years in Constantinople as a Varangian warrior, so he could buy back his family’s farm—struggles to protect his family from shame and ruin. Ægileif, a seeress obsessed with Egill, uses her witchcraft in a desperate attempt to win his love while Óstarki, her enigmatic son, seeks to reclaim the moral compass his mother has abandoned. Spanning across four decades and geographical settings that include Iceland, Greenland, and North America, as well as present-day Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and Syria, we follow these men and women as they navigate the struggles of pastoral farming, war, family life, and death while searching for a path from their heathen past to a Christian future. Secrets surface, friendships fracture, and long-buried animosities culminate in a gripping tale of honor, betrayal, friendship, faith, and heathen magic.
Reiner Prochaska is a playwright, a novelist, an actor, a director, a filmmaker, and a university lecturer. His plays have been produced at Maryland Ensemble Theatre and published nationally and internationally. His novel Captives, which tells the story of German soldiers interned at the historical POW camp in Frederick, Maryland, between 1944 and 1946, was published by The Permanent Press in 2019. He is the Producer and a Co-Director of the Catoctin Furnace Living History Festival, to which he contributes in creative and administrative capacities. A graduate of Towson University, Reiner teaches writing at his alma mater. He lives in Frederick, Maryland.
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