Corban Loosestrife’s son Conn is a clever and strong leader of men; his cousin, the god-touched Raef, is his shield and navigator. They have joined a fur-trading ship to Russia, and are forced to over-winter in Novgorod. While there, they take service with the leader of the Rus, Dobrynya, and with him travel south to Kiev, and then on with a raiding party into the northern reaches of the Byzantine Empire. With vivid description and passionate characters, Cecelia Holland takes the reader back to a time when heroes voyaged to the far corners of the known world. Whether fighting the ice in a deep Russian winter, sailing down a great river in a dragon ship, or wandering the elegant streets of the Black Sea city of Chersonese, Holland makes it real.

They were one soul in two bodies, Corban and Mav, twins born to the lord of a Irish coastal farmstead. Mav had the second sight and was her father's delight; Corban, though, was a deep disappointment, finally exiled for refusing his father's command to go and take up a sword for the High King.But on the night of Corban's exile, as he slept in the woods and brooded on injustice, the dreadful dragon ships of the Vikings bore down on his home with fire and the sword. The farm was plundered and burned; all the people were slain, save the young women--they were raped and dragged off to a life of slavery.From the coast of Ireland to the occupied village of Dublin, across the Irish Sea to a Viking stronghold in Britain, and then across the North Sea to the Kingdom of the Danes. Corban is drawn in the track of his ravaged sister, fighting for his own life and to earn the influence and money he will need to buy her freedom. His quest is not hopeless, for Mav's...

Corban Loosestrife's life changed the day he returned to his family steading in Ireland and found it destroyed by Vikings and his father, mother, and brothers all slain, but his twin sister, Mav, was not among the dead, and so he knew that she had been taken as a slave. Determined to redeem her, Corban found his sister, then the property of the sorcerous Lady of Hedeby and pregnant with Eric Bloodaxe's child, gotten in rape. Corban took his revenge; he killed Eric, who was the King of Jorvik, and in doing so he became bound in the net of alliances and blood debt that marked the battles for kingship among the Vikings. Upon the death of Eric Bloodaxe, Corban Loosestrife and his wife Benna fled into the west with Corban's sister Mav and her son. There they made a home for themselves in Vinland, hunting, fishing, raising crops to support themselves and their growing family. There they were happy, until one day when a ship appeared on the horizon, bringing Benna's sister and her husband, bringing a summons to Corban to return to Jorvik and intrigues of those who would be King. Along with Corban go his son, Conn, and his sister-son, Raef; both are young men ready to prove themselves in war. Waiting for them in Denmark is Gunnhild Kingsmother, a woman of great power, and her son, Harald Ericsson, the King of Norway, who has become a Christian. Also, in Hedeby there awaits the unquiet spirit of the Lady, to whom Corban swore an oath. The coming war of succession will be a clash of clan against clan, and army against army. The new power of the Christ strives with the ancient worship of Thor. Corban must tread a careful path between those who hate him and those would be his allies, while concealing Raef's true parentage. For though he is bound to the women's side, the witches' kitchen, in this power struggle, the boys are not, and they see only the glory of battle and the promise of bright gold. Meanwhile, in Vinland, the native tribes are eyeing Corban's fortified island and wondering if the strangers can finally be driven away.

In Two Ravens, a novel heavily influenced by the Norse sagas, Bjarni Hoskuldsson, an Icelander of the old faith, flees his violent father and his far-too-attractive stepmother to travel around Britain for a while, but ultimately must return home to meet and deal with his fate.  

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomine Tuo da gloriam. "Not to us, O Lord, but to Your Name give glory." This motto highlights the vows of chastity and humility taken by the Knights Templar. But, it also speaks to their role as ferocious warriors, passionately and bloodily seeking out glory for their God.Set in the Holy Land in 1187 A.D., Cecelia Holland's historical novel masterfully explores the conspiracies and political maneuvers leading up to the Third Crusade. Following a stunning victory at the Battle of Ramleh, Norman Templar Rannulf Fitzwilliam must negotiate a truce with the enemy and determine the order of succession to the throne of Baudouin, the young Christian king dying of leprosy. However, Rannulf's instincts are for battle, not diplomacy. Temptation and betrayal await him around every corner. The question is not whether he can survive on the battlefield, but whether he can survive the politics and protocol of the royal court."Holland's masterful layering of...

In The Soul Thief, and its spellbinding sequel, The Witches' Kitchen, celebrated historical novelist Cecilia Holland began an enthralling new tale of adventure, conflict, and passion set against the turbulent backdrop of the Viking invasions of Ireland in the ninth century. When Norse raiders slaughtered his family and abducted his sister, Corban Loosestrife set out on an odyssey that took him across half the world, from the Viking fortress of Jorvik to the wild and desolate shores of Vinland in the New World. Now, with The Serpent Dreamer, Holland continues this powerful epic, as Corban struggles to make a new life alone in this strange land amid bloody clashes between warring native clans. His service to the King of the Danes concluded, Corban returned to his new home in Vinland to find the colony destroyed, his beloved wife dead, and his twin sister Mav, with whom he shared a mystic bond, transfigured into a numinous being caught between this world and the next. Seeking shelter with a nearby tribe, Corban was shunned for his pale skin and dark, coarse hair, and feared for his strange powers to make fire and cut through the toughest skins with his magic blade. Epashti, the tribe's healer, came to love Corban, and in time bear him children. But Miska, the proud and cunning chief of the Wolf clan, despised Corban - in part because of his strangeness, but more because of Corban's bond with his twin sister, who Miska loves. Mav gave Miska a daughter, but spurned him ever after. Now, Mav's young daughter Ahanton has begun to show some of her mother's strange gifts. When her dream of a mighty army that worships a serpent convinces Miska that his old enemies, the Sun People, are approaching, he sets out to the east to unite the warring tribes into a force that may stand up to the invading army. But another vision compels Corban to travel west, toward the home of the Sun People, taking Espashti and young Anhaton with him. Hailed as an incarnation of Ixewe, the White Buffalo god, and kept as a curiosity by Itza Balam, the Lord of the Serpent Wand,. ruler of the great city of Cibal, Corban will play a pivotal role in a great destiny that will forever alter the world he has come to know.

In an exotic ancient land, a foreign stranger's sworn mission of vengeance leads him into the perilous circle of a ruthless Byzantine empress In the early years of the ninth century, the road home from Jerusalem winds through Constantinople for two Frankish noblemen-warriors. But when an encounter with a young woman running for her life results in the murder of Hagen the White's brother, he vows to find the perpetrators, no matter how highborn or powerful, and take his revenge. His hunt will carry him into the royal circle of the Basileus Irene, a ruthless despot who blinded her own son to force him off the throne. The beautiful and calculating empress is fascinated by this supposed barbarian who has sworn allegiance to the great Charlemagne, and she welcomes him into the imperial court—and into the dangerous fires of countless royal conspiracies. Suddenly Hagen must tread carefully through a vipers' nest of plots, lies, and bloodthirsty power plays, for if...

A breathtaking novel of primitive England and the astonishing birth of the miracle called Stonehenge In a time before recorded history, on an island that many centuries later would come to be known as Britain, Moloquin, the Unwanted One, dreams of a pathway to the heavens. Cast out as a child, he survives by his wits alone on the fringes of tribal society and grows into manhood driven by one powerful and unshakable ambition: to build a link between the earthly and the spiritual worlds through the raising of an impossible structure. But to accomplish such a momentous feat in this primitive age of stone will not only require superhuman strength, it will entail unraveling the very fabric of life. Still, Moloquin will not be deterred in his quest, and he will stand courageously against all enemies, court untold disaster, sacrifice what he must, and remake his entire world to see his great vision gloriously realized. One of today's foremost historical...

Where the Cape of the Winds juts into the endless sea, there is Castle Ocean, and therein dwells the royal family that has ruled it from time immemorial. But there is an Empire growing in the east, and its forces have reached the castle. King Reymarro is dead in battle, and by the new treaty, Queen Marioza must marry one of the Emperor's brothers. She loathes the idea, and has already killed the first brother, but a second arrives, escorted by more soldiers. While Marioza delays, her youngest son, Jeon, goes on a journey in search of his mute twin, Tirza, who needs to be present for the wedding.As Jeon and Tirza return by sea, their ship is attacked by a shocking and powerful dragon, red as blood and big as the ship. Thrown into the water, Tirza clings to the dragon, and after an underwater journey, finds herself alone with the creature in an inland sea pool. Surprisingly, she is able to talk to the beast, and understand it.So begins a saga of violence,...

In THE DEATH OF ATTILA, the great Hun leader dominates the late Roman world; in his shadow a Hun warrior and a German princeling form a fragile comradeship. When Attila dies, the world around them crumbles, and the two men face terrible choices. Cecelia Holland has published non-fiction historical/biographic works, children's novels, a contemporary novel and a science fiction novel as well as a number of historical essays but she is best known for more than two dozen historical novels set in time periods ranging from from the middle of the first millennium CE up through parts of the early 20th century and from Egypt, through Russia, central Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain and Ireland to the West Coast of the U.S. The hallmark of her style is a vivid recreation of time, place and character, all true to known facts...

Cecelia Holland's epic historical novels have been hailed as "brilliant" (New York Times Book Review), "excitingÖgrand" (Boston Sunday Herald), and "stylish, subtle" (Saturday Review). In UNTIL THE SUN FALLS, she invites readers to China in early thirteen century, for an adventure as exotic as the land it recreates. Genghis Khan has just died, leaving his empire between two men: his heir to the title of high king, his son, Ogotai; and to Batu, his eldest grandson of his oldest son. As the land from the East China Sea settles for peace, the western provokes are gearing up for invasion—of Russia and whatever other lands lay west. At the heart of the story, though, is Psin, the king of a tribe that calls itself the Merkits. It is Psin who, along with his wives and family, finds himself on the brink of history. As seemingly invincible armies prepare for fierce battles along the Volga River, Russia—and in truth, all of Eastern Europe—Psin and his clan ready...

Of the women in King Richard's life, she is the least known-and the most powerful.During the Third Crusade, deaths from fever and starvation are common, but King Richard the Lion-Hearted has a secret ally against these impassable enemies-a mysterious healer by the name of Edythe.She was sent to him by his mother Eleanor, and Richard first assumes that Edythe is a spy. But when her medical knowledge saves his life, she becomes an indispensable member of his camp-even as his loyal soldiers, suspicious of her talent for warding off death, call her a witch.

An enthralling fictional account of Howard Carter's famous search for the tomb of King Tut and the mystery behind the tragic death and disappearance of ancient Egypt's child ruler In ancient times, a boy king occupied the throne in a troubled desert land. His name was Tutankhamun. Both his reign and his life were shockingly brief, and his burial place was unknown—mysteries that would intrigue the inquisitive for centuries to come. An English archaeologist irresistibly drawn to Egypt and her secrets, Howard Carter arrives in the Middle East in the second decade of the twentieth century to uncover the hidden final resting place of the tragic child pharaoh. But from the outset his search is plagued by misfortune and obstruction—a corrupt and unbending Egyptian bureaucracy, a British lord and patron more interested in profit than in knowledge, and Carter's own inability to connect with his fellow human beings. Still, he will not be deterred...