Dragon in the Snow
Chuffed to bits as author Lexie Conyngham has agreed to be a guest blogger this month. A big Quoyloo welcome to Lexie as she reveals a little of her new Orkneyinga Murders novel, Dragon in the Snow, currently on pre-order.
Brilliant cover and here is what Lexie has to say about it, her previous books and falling in love with Orkney.
Brilliant cover and here is what Lexie has to say about it, her previous books and falling in love with Orkney.
Thank
you, Babs, for asking me to do a bit for your blog!
I’ve
been travelling to Orkney for work and pleasure for twenty years and
more, and every time I land or disembark it’s hard to wipe the
smile off my face! What do I like about it? Well, obviously the
people I’ve met have been friendly and resourceful, the scenery is
beautiful, there is archaeology and history in every square inch, the
wildlife is wonderful. But there’s something more than that – for
many people, even when they first set foot on the islands, there is a
strange, familiar, sense of coming home. A sense of things working
the way they should work.
When
I was first challenged (for want of a better word) to expand my
historical range and write a series of Viking whodunnits, at first I
wasn’t quite sure where to set them (if I wrote them at all!). I
had started my research in York, of which I’m very fond. I could
have used it as a good excuse to go to Norway, where we have friends
and where I could practise my beginners’ Norwegian. Neither seemed
quite right – and then I realised why. Orkney was the perfect
place. The Brough of Birsay, pivot of Earl Thorfinn’s mighty realm,
on the cusp of the change from the old religion to the new – late
in the Viking age, perhaps, but oh, with so much to think about and
learn about! So pleasure trips to Orkney became, again, work trips,
but the very best kind of work: striding across the Brough to get the
lie of the land, crossing from island to island to see how they would
have looked to the approaching wooden ship, learning not only about
Viking life on the islands but also in more detail about bird and
plant and animal life that would have been familiar to those people.
In fact, I’m not quite sure how I get away with calling it work!
In
the course of this enjoyable pastime I found out that Shapinsay is
not mentioned in the Orkneyinga Saga, and that it had been speculated
that the Vikings had never settled there – yet there are plenty of
Viking place names. So could it be that nothing ever happened on
Shapinsay?
Well,
time has rolled on and at the end of this month the third in the
Orkneyinga Murders series is out – Dragon
in the Snow.
My two main characters, Thorfinn’s agent Ketil and his childhood
friend, widow and woolworker Sigrid, have been separated: he’s
still at Birsay while she’s gone to Shapinsay, where nothing ever
happens. But a series of ferocious fires brings Ketil to Shapinsay,
too, to find out who is responsible and bring them to Thorfinn’s
justice – preferably before the settlement on Shapinsay is wiped
out for good.
Hope
you enjoy it, and take care!
Lexie
Link to Lexie's book.
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