If life weren’t dangerous enough, stuntwoman Rita Sawyer has been recruited by the Navy SEALs. Now instead of being lit on fire and hurtling through skyscraper windows, she’s trying to survive her grueling SEAL training. But when a sea operation goes wrong, Rita awakens to find herself still clad in her wet suit and in a cage, with a bunch of Vikings staring at her. With no idea how she traveled back in time to the Norselands, all Rita is certain of is that her Viking warlord captor is tempting her beyond reason.
Steven of Norstead can’t believe the sight before him. The strange sea creature he found is actually a beautiful woman. But with her sharp tongue and irksome ways, Rita is like no other woman he has ever known. Steven has been in a cold dark mood for a very long time. Mayhap this unusual woman will be the one to light his fire.
I have read a number of Sandra Hill novels and enjoyed them all, so was delighted to be asked to read and review this new release. As in all her novels, she writes with a sure hand, creating characters that are real, imperfect, and believable. She does her historical homework, while finding wonderful ways to make those distant times accessible to contemporary readers.
This is an excessively funny book. It is one of those that is built around two main characters–one who is a Norse warlord and who lived about the time that the Norse discovered the North American continent. The heroine is a woman of 2010, and finding a way to define one another’s world is a great foundation for a scintillating love story full of word play and linguistic misunderstand. In short, it is more fun than you would ever expect out of a serious romantic novel. This book is, I think, could be more accurately characterized as “a romp” through the Norse world of Steven of Norstead. It is also a delightful opportunity for contemporary readers to consider how our modern world, 1,000 years later, might have looked to those peoples.
Rita is certainly a woman of her times and she is not prepared to “sit obediently” and be “biddable” to the whims and demands of the men. She thinks nothing of teaching archery to the boys (a woman?), making her own underwear (a great hit with the Norse women who had never seen anything like it), teaching the women of the castle to line dance, teaching them country & Western music, wearing boys clothing to work, introducing her own version of deoderant, and so on. She is not one to refrain from sharing her opinion and she struggles with the necessity of merging her understanding of human relationships with the culture in which she finds herself.
Steven is certainly a true Norseman, forced into leadership by the disappearance of his brother, but who has not been able to stop being overwhelmed emotionally by his parents’ death and that disappearance. He would have made a great CEO, in Rita’s opinion, and she gains great respect for his leadership style and abilities, but Steven really doesn’t quite know what to make of Rita. All he knows is that there is NO WAY he is going to ever let her out of his life.
Simply stated, this is just one great read! And Sandra Hill has done us all a favor by bringing that distant and ancient culture into modern perspective through the eyes of the heroine. It is so well-written, well-researched, with a plot that is enthralling and story development that keeps the reader hooked for the duration. I cannot say enough about this novel and I hope that all lovers of historical romance will take the time to be delighted, entertained, and educated by this book.
I just have to give it a rating of 5 out of 5.
The Series:
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place.
This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here
or here in e-format.
or here in e-format.