One Viking woman. One God. One legendary journey to North America.
In the tenth century, when pagan holy women rule the Viking lands, Gudrid turns her back on her training as a seeress to embrace Christianity. Clinging to her faith, she joins her husband, Finn, on a journey to North America.
But even as Gudrid faces down murderous crewmen, raging sickness, and hostile natives, she realizes her … natives, she realizes her greatest enemy is herself–and the secrets she hides might just tear her marriage apart.
Almost five centuries before Columbus, Viking women sailed to North America with their husbands. God’s Daughter, Book One in the Vikings of the New World Saga, offers an expansive yet intimate look into the world of Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir–daughter-in-law of Eirik the Red, and the first documented European woman to have a child in North America.
This novel is based heavily on the Icelandic Sagas and is written from a Christian worldview.
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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
I loved this well researched and well written story about a new world settlement, financed by Leif Erickson. Told through the eyes of an adopted daughter of Eric the Red, it’s a tale of hardship and passion that spans two continents and several years, just as the vikings are abandoning the old gods and adopting a more settled lifestyle an the Christian tradition.
This one’s a great way to absorb a bit of history with your romance.
Setting: North America, Greenland
Time Period: AD 1000
If you’ve been around history buffs for any length of time, you may have heard about how the Vikings, mainly Erik the Red, explored North America way before Columbus. Well, if you’re interested in a fictional take on life in AD 1000 on a Viking expedition, then “God’s Daughter” by Heather Day Gilbert is a must read!
The first part of the book was set in North America at one of the Viking camps and the second part showed their way of life back in Greenland, after the expedition. I soooooo enjoyed this book! It was like a cross between a Colonial novel and an old Scottish/Irish historical. You could tell that the author did a lot of research before writing this book; there were so many cultural things the Vikings did that I had no idea was a thing. It was all very fascinating.
In addition, not only was the setting and foreign way of life interesting, the characters were so memorable! Gudrid, the heroine, was my favorite. She was a chieftain’s daughter, suffered the loss of her mother at a young age, two dead husbands and left her home in Greenland to join her third husband on a trip to the new world. To me, she was the most interesting character, and my oh my, there were several interesting characters in this book! Unlike a lot of heroines in Christian Fiction, she was already married and had a child from the first page. I felt that gave the story a different outlook than a typical romance book, and there was a lot of romance and romantic struggles in this story too. But the thing I loved the most was her realistic struggle with the Christian faith. It was so new to the people of that time that there was no Scripture available to those living in Greenland – only what she could remember from her conversation with a monk. (Y’all, that’s real, right there!) I enjoyed how the author made those thoughts and feelings come across. It felt genuine.
Conclusion: I love novels that are based off of true stories and/or real life events. When I got to the end of the book and the Authors Note explained the author didn’t change the names of several characters because she wanted them to reflect their real life counterparts, I was delighted. Truly felt like I learned a bit of lesser known history. Many thanks to my peeps in the “Avid Readers of Christian Fiction” group on Facebook for recommending “God’s Daughter,” now, I recommend it too!