Reviewer: Tracy Viking Heat by Sandra Hill
Series: Viking II #9
Publisher: Berkley, Penguin
Publication Date: September 1, 2009
Format: eARC
Genres: Time Travel
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Psychologist Joy Nelson thinks things are bad when she finds herself training in the modern-day female Navy SEALs program. But then her life takes a turn for the worse. Somehow she’s been thrust back in time to the cold Norselands, and is being auctioned off as a thrall, or slave–a gift for a Viking warlord, who would be a perfect candidate for Male Chauvinist Viking of the Centuries!
Brandr isn’t thrilled with the slave his brothers have purchased for him. Holy Thor! The woman wants to teach him anger-management skills! And help him find his feminine side, whatever that is. She may be beautiful, but the saucy wench defies him at every turn. So Brandr makes her an offer: She can earn her freedom…as his bed thrall. But when Joy dares to decline his offer, he must decide what to do with the woman enslaved to him–and the out-of-control heat between them.
While on a covert op trying to flush out a slavery ring, Joy Nelson somehow finds herself in a bit of a pickle. Her hands are tied, literally, and next thing she knows she’s being sold in an auction as a slave. She’s pretty certain that things are not as they should be but she really has no idea what’s going on. She ends up being taken by a Viking longboat to an estate in the Norselands and is given as a present to their Jarl, or chieftain, as a present. She’s pretty pissed off about everything that is happening and she’s just waiting for her SEAL extraction team to get her out of the weird reenactment village she’s landed in. The problem is, she eventually finds out, she’s not in a reenactment village, she’s in the 10th century and these are real Vikings!
Brandr is a warrior in the 10th century. At one point most of his family and village is killed in a raid by a rival family. Brandr ends up going beserker and all he wants is the death of everyone responsible. When he returns from his campaign he is gifted with a slave by his 2 remaining brothers. She is unlike any woman he’s ever seen and he is fascinated by her in many ways. He wants to bed her but will not take her against her will. This leads to some interesting verbal foreplay between the hero and heroine.
I thought this was a very cute book. I’ve not read anything by this author before so I don’t really know anything about her previous Viking books but that didn’t seem to be an issue while reading – this one seemed very real to me in so many ways. The heroine had no clue that she had time traveled so she didn’t feel that she needed to make adjustments to save her own hide. She was who she was and she wasn’t going to change. At some points it was a tad annoying but I appreciated her uniqueness. I’m usually not one who goes in for a woman coming into a situation and completely taking over and everyone else letting her. But this was done in such a subtle way that I could see it happening. There were some times that I was rolling my eyes at something that happened that I could never see happening in a million years but those were few and far between.
I also very much enjoyed the sense of family in this book. The heroine had lost family members and was very close with her brothers and could relate with the hero in his grief. Also, being a psychologist, Joy was able to help with Brandr’s sister, Liv, who had been captured by the rival family and gang raped (no this is not described, just spoken of). Joy helped bring her out of her shell and start to live again and it was a lovely part of the story.
In the end it was a cute book that I enjoyed passing the time with.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5