If you like viking tales this is a pretty good one. Two blood brothers swear as children to forever hold each other as brothers. Eyvind expects to be a viking, his soon to be blood brother Sommerled expects to be a king. The two boys are as different as night and day, Eyvind straighforward in his thoughts and deeds, he holds norse decorum as a faith he follows to a tee. To illustrate Eyvind, he kills cleanly, even his enemies. Sommerled, is more cerebral, cunning and has a streak of cruelty in him. Eyvind teaches him how to hunt and play but Sommerled feels he is made of finer stuff. He learns what Eyvind teaches him but his way leads toward politics, manipulation and blind ambition.To illustrate Sommerled he prefers to torture and draw out suffering before he kills. They made the blood pact before Eyvind really understood the differences between the two of them.
As they grow into young adulthood they find themselves sailing to an island (The Orkneys) to settle, peacefully if possible with any existing people. They do find people there and Sommerleds brother Ulf, the leader of the expedition offers up a truce to the King of the Isle. For a short time the two peoples lived in harmony.
Ulf is murdered and the vikings blame the Islanders. The Islanders believe Sommerled murdered his own brother. Eyvind in denial does not accept what he knows until he masacres young boys and old men as ordered by Sommerled who has taken his brothers place. Eyvind runs, his mind is gone, he is out of his mind.
Nessa, a young priestess of the Island folk finds him and nurses him back to health over many months. She knows he is a viking but does it anyway.
The rest of the book deals with how a viking and a priestess unite the two peoples and eek out justice for murder, both for Ulf and for the people of the isles.
About a quarter thru the book I wondered why this was in the fantasy section. It was more of a historical piece and yes, eventually romance happens. The fantasy part really entails Nessa communing with the dead of her people, the island itself and the author adding in a myth about fashioning a harp from a dead person so that dead person can have a voice ~ to tell his story.
A detailed good book with some berserker info, lots of historic references, both of the people and the geography of Okney. Also, Christianity living side by side with Thor and the Islands priestess based religion. Not strictly fantasy tho.
