Author Suzie Wilde completes her Book of Bera trilogy

As Suzie says, the time of peace is over. The time of war has begun. It has been published as a paperback by Unbound for £9.99 and tells of Bera’s most dangerous and important journey yet. It follows on from Sea Paths (2017) and Obsidian (2019) in a trilogy which follows Bera from young woman to Valla warrior. It combines rich Norse cultural detail and gripping adventure with a strong message of female empowerment.

Bera is struggling to reconcile her duties as a woman with her destiny as a Valla. Under the weight of her ability to shape the future, she finds freedom only at sea on her beloved longboat. But when she discovers that Vikings have taken her kin as slaves on Wolf Island, she knows she has no choice but to follow. Warned that Chaos is coming, Bera sets off once more on a quest to save her people. Using her smith’s iron lore and the knowledge of her Valla ancestors, she follows an ancient path into a labyrinth deep underground where human time is meaningless. Forced to confront her worst foe, a sacrifice is demanded to finally bring peace – and human love…

The book is available from bookshops and Amazon. More details on suziewilde.co.uk.

“Imagine a mashup of Game of Thrones, Heidi, Moby Dick and Vikings!” Suzie said. “If you like Northern Lights this will appeal. Like so many of us, I am fascinated by darkness, ice, the deep ocean and lives lived on the edge of knowledge. When I was small my father read me Norse stories and he built a boat called Freya. Sadly she was lost in the big freeze of 1962 and the theme of loss runs through all three books. But so does the quest for belonging, for love, and home. Landfall is a thriller about the lies we tell to gain power; choosing a belief that satisfies greed.

“I was doing an MA in creative writing with Greg Mosse and my gritty crime thriller set in Portsmouth kept being sabotaged by a longship’s prow, curling out of the mist. I gave up, saw who was aboard and then followed Bera’s progress over three books.

“The Book Of Bera was written as a stand-alone novel that intrigued me and my readers enough to write a sequel, which then became a trilogy. It definitely ends with Landfall , though each book can be read separately. Book 1, Sea Paths, is Bera’s growing up on the edge of the White Sea and her brutal discovery of who she is; Book 2, Obsidian, her quest to understand the nature of her powers set against volcanic catastrophe in Iceland.

“I’ve always made books, from age five, for an audience and never a diary. Writing is a joy – but my desire to be published sharpened when my mother died and I had not managed to have children. The Book Of Bera series is my tribute to motherhood and strong women. And strong men. And dogs!”