Review – Glynnis Campbell – The Shipwreck
Outcast by her brothers and stripped of her home and lands for birthing her “‘bastard viking spawn'”, Avril lives on the coast with her four year old daughter, Kimbery. They live on what they can scavenge from the sea. Theirs is a hard, lonely existence but Avril is coping well and is proud of providing a life for her beloved daughter.
The morning after a violent storm the pair comb the shoreline. Avril hopes to discover part of a broken boat, or useful kelp. Kimbery on the other hand is certain she’ll find mermaids treasure.
Neither expected their find..
“Mama! It’s my da!”
The half dead, wealthy looking, blonde man was undeniable in his viking origins. He was not Kimbery’s father but that mattered not to Avril. All viking men were cut from the same cloth. They all raped and pillaged and invaded.
All she could think of was protecting her daughter from this man and any shipmates who came searching for him.
That’s how Brandr came to return to consciousness tied up in the small home on the shore.
This tale shows that you can’t always judge one man by his countrymen. How Viking and Pict can come together. How they can discover love in the most unlikely of places and put past hurts behind them to create s stronger future.
“As improbable as it seemed, the two of them – captive and captor, mortal enemies – had somehow done much more than find common ground and an uneasy peace. They’d fallen in love.”
Emma Ruthven-Stevenson 