I just finished Wolfskin by Juliet Marillier. It was a really good book about a Norse warrior(berserk), his best friend/blood brother, the girl they meet on a distant island, and her people. I was initially hoping for a book filled with magic, but this pleasantly surprised me. It had just enough without overdoing it, more based on real things with just a touch of magic here and there to solidify the base. I was a bit dissapointed after reading the end because I felt it concluded, but left things open. Then I found an advertisement for the sequel in the back and it sounds just as good.
I can't wait to get it. ^.^
Here is a decent summary I found on Amazon.com:
Quote:
The only things young Eyvind has ever wanted--passionately!--are to be a Viking warrior, a Wolfskin, and to serve the mighty war god, Thor. One summer night during his fifteenth year, Wolfskins take Eyvind from the home of his mother and into the mountains for the harrowing warrior's initiation. Eyvind passes with flying colors and quickly earns a reputation as the strongest, most fearless Wolfskin in his jarl's retinue. He is now sure of his life path: a short but glorious life as a Wolfskin, with perhaps a woman and a child or two, leading to an honorable warrior's death. The gods have other plans for Eyvind, however--plans that will take him to a strange land of unsurpassed beauty, to a wild young priestess who saves his life and captures his heart, and ultimately to the edge of sanity, where he will either find his unique soul or lose it forever. An engrossing, beautifully written work of historical fiction and a portrait of a man's fierce struggle to find his own truth. Paula Luedtke
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I greatly recommend it.