I almost forgot to list this book, as I never finished it, and I think there is a place for books I have started and not finished. The premise was quite fascinating – the story takes place in the ninth century when people sailed from Iceland to Greenland, both very harsh lands – I even looked them up on Google Maps to see how much was actually livable and how much was snow covered. I usually like these historical fiction books, and there was an interesting thread of Christianity coming into the lives of these people and competing with the Norse gods. I listened to over half of the book, but I found I had no sympathy for any of the three main characters – Thorbjorg the seer, Katla the thrall (slave), and Katla’s daughter, the voiceless Bibrau, who becomes an apprentice to Thorbjorg. I know their lives were harsh, but they were all so negative, I didn’t much care how it would all turn out. I also could not get into the mind-space of either the worship of the Norse gods or the Christian faith as presented here. There was much bloody sacrificing and the gods talked to these women. I believe that people can be guided by some larger force or inner voice, but these made no sense to me.
I later went back to look for reviews. It turns out that Lindbergh researched this for years and it is considered a great book about those times, and about Christian ideas taking root in these cultures. I also read some reviews by regular people on Amazon, and found many who agreed with me that it was a hard read, with unsympathetic characters.
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