A great tale which held me spellbound

A masterly achievement, full of blood-drenched battle scenes, yet with tender moments too. Kristian evokes the warriors' stubborn camaraderie and their own strange code

This is a storming, magnificent end to what has been one of the best Viking series of all time. Authentic, bloody, visceral... this is tale-telling at its rip-roaring best

Kristian can really write... his battle scenes are bone crunchingly good, his descriptions of the Viking world bright and evocative... a great storyteller

An all-action adventure... beautifully told

I loved it. Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart that one is carried away on a tidal wave of involvement and concern

Engrossing - compassionate and tense.

Writing with great verve and charm, Belgium-based Unigwe describes the parameters of a half-life where dreams of big houses and plait extensions help to block out a grubby reality

Haunting story... Sometimes a novel can tell you more than any amount of documentary journalism.

Sobering... the humiliations endured by the quartet are forcefully driven home by Unigwe.

A very superior work of women's fiction... an exceedingly skilled analysis of the relationship between different generations of women and how the power shifts as the old, as they must, get old and the young move on... it is a story told beautifully

The legendary Ms Trollope triumphs yet again, with her latest slick of classy chick-lit

This thoroughly engaging, intelligent, literate novel

The brilliantly observed portrayal of family life is wonderfully compelling - and a story many will be able to identify with. ****