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    On the Cold Coasts
    On the Cold Coasts
    On the Cold Coasts
    Audiobook6 hours

    On the Cold Coasts

    Written by Vilborg Davidsdottir

    Narrated by Angela Dawe

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When a fleet of one hundred English ships is caught in a horrible storm off the cold coasts of fifteenth-century Iceland, twenty-five ships are lost. For Ragna, the daughter of a respected family and betrothed to Thorkell, her relationship with one of the seamen washed ashore results in pregnancy. Now barren due to a traumatic childbirth and stigmatized as a fallen woman, she is left with no prospects for marriage when the betrothal is ultimately canceled.

    A decade later, Ragna becomes a housekeeper to the new English bishop in North Iceland, where passionate and ambitious Thorkell is a priest and steward. They embark on a fervent but doomed love affair as priests cannot marry and Ragna will not be a concubine. Little does Ragna know, her host, the bishop, is instigating the conflict between the English and Nordic settlers to his own gain, with a devastating impact on his housekeeper. As sweeping as it is intimate, On the Cold Coasts is a powerful, enduring story of love and personal sacrifice.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    TranslatorAlda Sigmundsdottir
    Release dateMay 15, 2012
    ISBN9781455881079
    On the Cold Coasts
    Author

    Vilborg Davidsdottir

    Vilborg Davidsdottir earned a degree in media studies from the University of Iceland in 1991 as well as a bachelor’s in folkloristics and English in 2005 and a master’s degree in folkloristics in 2011. She worked in the media for fifteen years as a journalist, radio programmer, and TV reporter but has focused on her writing since 2000. She has written six novels, three of which—By the Well of Fates (1993), The Norns Judgement (1994), and Audur (2009)—take place during the Viking Age in Iceland, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland. Her other three novels—Sacrifice (1997), On the Cold Coasts (2000), and Raven (2005)—are set in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Iceland and Greenland. On the Cold Coasts is her first book to be translated into English. Vilborg lives in Reykjavik with her husband and is the mother of three children.

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    Reviews for On the Cold Coasts

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned a lot about the politics of 15th century Nordic nations. Having recently read The Red Tent, this was yet another book looking at the role and treatment of women in history. I can only pray we are not on a backward path. A great personal plus about this book is that the heroine is named "Ragna", which was the name of my beloved late mother! If you like historical fiction, this well worth your time.