The Viking
Bobbi Smith
ISBN: 9781420108804
(Previously Published as "Passion")
Read May 16, 2014
Set in a really loose historical time with Vikings vs Saxons. Occasional editing and proofreading flubs, some characterization wiffles, but nothing really awful. Very formulaic.
Dynna is a Saxon widow being forced by her father-in-law to marry her late husband's brother. He's evil, natch.
Brage is a fearless Viking warrior, with an older and a younger half-brother who follow his lead on a stream of successful raids. His "battle name" is the Black Hawk, due to his Irish mother's heritage giving him odd black hair.
As a prelude, there is a stock old fortune-teller who casts runes to predict Brage's success, and a shadowy figure who betrays the Viking's plans for a raid into Saxon territory.
Dynna and her maid attempt an escape in peasant's clothing, and are intercepted by the beginnings of the Viking raid. With the info from the traitor, Dynna's evil intended easily mops the floor with them, captures the Viking, and re-catches Dynna as well.
Dynna is a healer, and is needed to make sure that Brage is well enough to ransom back to his father. She plots to use him as muscle to get her across country to her father's estate to escape her impending forced marriage. Brage just wants to not be imprisoned by the Saxons.
They fall in love along the trip (along with copious amounts of sex in the countryside) and get her safely to her parents, where evil wanna-be husband instantly attacks and recaptures them both, confining Dynna to her parent's estate, and bringing Brage back to be ransomed to his father (and incidentally also for all the Vikings to be killed by ambush).
After the requisite Viking victory, there's the equally requisite grave misunderstanding between the lovers, and Dynna is taken back to Viking lands as a slave, rather than as Brage's intended.
Once "home" in Viking-land, the traitor is revealed, Dynna makes a final loving sacrifice by taking a blade meant for Brage, and everything works out in the end.
There is a minor sub-plot where Dynna's maid and Brage's half-brother also fall in love.
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