C.J. Adrien

Power. Revenge. Forbidden love in the heart of a dying empire. When Viking warlord Hasting arrives at the gates of Constantinople, he knows he can't conquer it. Not with deeds of arms alone. But fate has other plans. His failed raid turns into an opportunity: serve Empress Theodora as her...

"This was a man accursed: fierce, mightily cruel, and savage . . . " —Gesta Normannorum Ducum. He lost his glory. He lost his son. Now, he'll risk everything to etch his name into legend. Two years after the sack of Paris in 845 A.D., Viking warlord Hasting is drowning in drink and disgrace...

From bestselling and award-winning author C. J. Adrien comes a tale of hardship, friendship, and love on the American Frontier. In the bustling frontier town of St. Louis, New Yorker Christian dreams of wealth in the fur trade, only to find himself perilously ill-equipped for its harsh realities...

Northmen sacked the monastery at dawn before anyone had awakened. They burned the village and slaughtered all who stood in their path....

843 AD The city of Nantes Burns. An unexpected betrayal forces Hasting to abandon his closest ally. With his heart turned black, he rekindles the savagery of his race. In sacking Nantes, his bravery and luck earn him a place in the skalds' songs. Word of his deeds reach his kin in the North, and...

"Pagan ships have done much harm to the islands of Aquitaine. Some of them were entirely lost . . . a great chastening is upon them unlike any the ancient Christian world has ever seen."—Alcuin of York, Letter to Arno King Horic is dead. The oaths that once bonded the Danes and Northmen in the...

"For indeed the Frankish nation, which was crushed by the avenger Hasting, was full of filthy uncleanness. Treasonous and oath-breaking, they were deservedly condemned; unbelievers and faithless, they were justly punished." —Dudo of St. Quentin, Gesta Normannorum Orphaned as a child by a...