There's little pleasure in watching Coulter ( Earth Song ) torment and degrade her heroine throughout this tale set late in the first century. Magnus is a Viking farmer-merchant who does a bit of pillaging ``from time to time.'' On a trip to York he spies the beautiful Zarabeth and introduces himself with a proposal of marriage. The girl decides to accept, but her stepfather, Olav the Vain, who wants her in his own bed, blackmails her into rejecting Magnus's suit. No sooner does Olav wed her himself than he is poisoned by Toki, his daughter-in-law, who wants his riches. On learning that they were left to Zarabeth, Toki pins the crime on her. Magnus arrives in time to add his damaging testimony and persuade the court to make Zarabeth his slave instead of killing her. As Magnus sees it, ``Shepk had wronged him. She deserved to suffer for it, and she would.'' Accompanied by her young, deaf half-sister Lotti, Zarabeth sails for Norway to make a new life as Magnus's slave--the only one of the bunch to wear a slave collar--and mistress, plagued by his vicious and deceitful sister Ingunn.
Anyone who is a Catherine Coulter fan will like this book. It is about Magnus Haraldsson, a Viking who is on a trading mission who finds a woman who he wants as his wife and then bonds her into slavery.
Catherine Coulter is a fabulous writer...have yet to read anything she has written that I fail to enjoy.
Zarabeth, with hair as red as an Irish sunset, is chosen by Magnus Haraldsson, a Viking on a trading visit to York, to be his wife. She is both stunned and fascinated by his bluntness, but is soon won over by this man who makes her laugh, brings her desire, and ultimately makes her trust him with her future and that of her little sister, Lotti. But her stepfather, Olav the Vain, ahs no intention of setting a bride price on Zarabeth. Zarabeth does eventually return with Magnus to his farmstead in Norway, but as his slave, not as his wife. She wears the slave collar around her neck for all to see, but bears his distrust of her and her own pain deep within her.
Zarabeth, with hair as red as an Irish sunset, is chosen by Magnus Haraldsson, a Viking on a trading visit to York, to be his wife. She is both stunned and fascinated by his bluntness, but is soon won over by this man who makes her laugh, brings her desire, and ultimately makes her trust him with her future and that of her little sister, Lotti. But her stepfather, Olav the Vain, has no intention of setting a bride price on Zarabeth.
