Showing posts with label viking romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label viking romance. Show all posts

Sunday, October 7, 2012

THE VIKING LIFE



My romance about Vikings in Ireland, The Eagle's Woman, has gotten 5-star reviews from both readers and professional reviewers since it was released on August 2.  Recently I returned from a trip to Ireland where I did research for Book Two, The Eagle's Lady.  I was expecting horrendous weather, but actually we had only one day when a gale was blowing.  Of course it was the one when I visited the Cliffs of Moher, towering 300 feet above the Atlantic Ocean!  I have stood on those cliffs on calm days, but no way was I going out in an 80-km. gale, so I lived to write my sequel.  :)

Cliffs of Moher
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My research into the first book of The Eagle series was mostly set against the stark, cold coast of Norway.


   I had had the plot in the back of my mind for quite some time, but what did I know about Vikings?  I was amazed and a little intimidated when I realized just how much work bringing about that back-of-my-mind dream was going to entail.  I knew about the Viking longships, the Berserkers…I even had a notion about how their concept of trial by judge would filter down into English Common Law via the Norman invasion to become our modern trial-by-jury. 
But I didn’t know much about the private code of conduct so integral to Viking life.  Viking society was permeated by the notion of honor, or drengskapr, and shame, or nior.  In stark contrast to our present-day image of heated Berserker frenzy in battle, the Viking in his private life was valued for self control, bravery, generosity, sense of fair play and respect for the right way of doing things.  A stoic and imperturbable manner was considered highly honorable.  Cowardice, treachery, kin-killing and oath-breaking constituted dishonorable, shameful behavior that could even result in temporary or permanent banishment.  Taunts issued through—of all things—poetry could get you outlawed (the Irish bards were pretty vicious, too), and accusing another man of effeminate behavior was signing your own death warrant.  Viking law allowed for lethal reprisal.
Matters of honor were often settled by duel with swords, spears and axes. 

 This took place before witnesses in the context of a carefully orchestrated ritual.  In Iceland, men were required to duel within the area which could be covered by a cloak, often on a small island in a river, which prevented retreat or interference.  The first man to become disarmed was the loser.  If his opponent then cut him down, he could be outlawed, which meant he was banished and was essentially free game to anyone who wished to kill him, and someone usually did.  Quite a difference from our image of the out-of-control raider decimating peaceful villages, isn’t it? 
           That wasn't the only surprise I found and you will see some of these illustrated in the character of Ari Bjornsson, second son of an impoverished, dying jarl.  Pagan himself, still he spares priests though he sells them as scribes.  He's a heathen, a murderer, and it is a sin for any Christian woman to love him.  Yet when he abducts Maeve from her peaceful Irish fishing village, he may have found the only one who can. 

SEE “THE EAGLE’S WOMAN” AT THE FOLLOWING LINKS:



Friday, September 28, 2012


Five Stars for The Eagle's Woman

Miriam Newman is currently somewhere in western Ireland, doing research for the sequel to this new release The Eagle's Woman. In her absence, her friends have been allowed to go "behnd the scenes" of this blog to post celtic-themed articles.

What better article to wish Miriam "bon voyage" and to celebrate her latest book? This is a review published by YouGottaRead Reviews on September 28, 2012--in time for her leaving for the shores of the emerald isle--and we publish it here on her own lovely blog.

Review – The Eagle’s Woman By Miriam Newman
SEPTEMBER 28, 2012 
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Title: The Eagle’s Woman
Author: Miriam Newman
Publisher: DCL Publications
Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Eagles-Woman-ebook/dp/B008RZD4Q2/ref=sr
Rating: pastedGraphic_1.pdfpastedGraphic_2.pdfpastedGraphic_3.pdfpastedGraphic_1.pdfpastedGraphic_3.pdf You Gotta Read

Blurb:
Son of an impoverished, dying Norse chieftain, Ari raids for booty and slaves so he can feed his people. Pagan himself, still he spares priests though he sells them. He’s a heathen, a murderer, and it is a sin for any Christian woman to love him. Yet when he abducts Maeve from her peaceful Irish fishing village, he may have found the one woman who can.

Review:
Reading The Eagle’s Woman was to me like sipping a rare wine. The taste, the aroma, the heady fire of the words–I wanted the sensation never to end. Ah, Miriam Newman, you are the keeper and dispenser of poetic prose. You make me drunk with the pleasure of reading.

Like the two other novels by Newman I have read, The King’s Daughter and Scion, this latest one focuses on one powerful man and the woman he has come to “own.” And like those two books, the man is strong, resilient, even sensitive; while the woman keeps herself at an ironic distance, measuring and unyielding, yet irresistibly drawn to him.
Unlike those previous novels, which were set in almost fantasy universes, The Eagle’s Woman takes place in a setting cold, beautiful and real–the ninth-century Norway of the Vikings. Newman describes longships on the rough sea, steamy sauna baths and fire-lit longhouses with the sureness of a writer who has been in those very places.

Ari is a Viking whose latest foray has captured Irish slaves for selling in Denmark. Among the women is Maeve, a gold-haired beauty who fights her captivity from the beginning as she is almost raped by one of the rude plunderers. She fights her confinement on the longship, and most of all she fights the nearness to Ari, to whom she now belongs by right of seizure.  Even while struggling against him, she finds herself conflicted emotionally, seeing his compelling body and handsome face: “Well, he was a beautiful man, that was all. A beautiful, savage, murdering heathen.”

Ari himself is larger than life, almost like the majestic figurehead we imagine on the prow of a proud Viking ship. He is utterly enraptured by Maeve. Gazing on her, “His parts ached with immediate urgency." At first he will not abuse her because he plans to sell her in Hedeby, a Danish port and center of a thriving slave trade. Later, as he begins to understand his own needs, he will not force her because he feels an honest admiration, and he respects her fighting instinct: “You could not put your heart in a woman’s hands. It was like handing a razor to a child–they would only cut it out without meaning to.”

The pace of the novel is swift and sure. The author takes us from the longship to Ari’s home in Norway; and from there to a distant coastline where Maeve has been brought as a captive again–this time by Ari’s malevolent half-brother.

At last Newman moves the reader to a long-awaited consummation of her characters’ passions, until finally Ari murmurs to his woman: “I want inside you. All of me, inside all of you.”

Here’s to beautiful writing, and to a satisfying love story. I raise my glass to you, Miriam Newman, and to your latest triumph The Eagle’s Woman.