This is a book I will read again and I highly recommend it for High School ages through adults. It is the story of the life and travels of the Viking age woman explorer, Gudrid of Iceland. The characters and events are based on accounts of events in the Icelandic sagas: Eirik’s Saga, Graenlendinga Saga and Eyrbyggja Saga. She was the most traveled woman of the world in the Viking age, having traveled from Iceland and Norway to Greenland and North America and then on to Rome. The book is written as the dictation of the elderly Gudrid in Rome, to a young monk originally from Iceland. The author’s prose weaves details of the everyday, the spiritual and the geographical environment into an outstanding historical novel. Anyone who has ever lived in and appreciated the beauty of the North will love to read this. Several times I stopped and re-read passages in this book because of not only the depiction of the natural world but because of the literary beauty of it. That is a rare thing for me. I am very interested in reading her other works after reading this. ( )

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2008/08... ( )