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.


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!



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