The Sea Road - Softcover

a gripping historical novel...written with considerable style. * * The Bookseller * * the author cleverly interweaves Gutrin's discourse with her innermost thoughts ... the Sea Road will appeal to historian, environmentalists, anthropologists and just ordinary cruising seamen. * * Cruising * * The Sea Road offers a new take on the remarkable early seafaring adventures of the Norwegians, and on the spread of Christianity in the pagan north, and is all the more rewarding for that. * * The Scotsman * * Forget Richard Branson, the audacious female traveller Gudrid of Iceland is the original explorer's explorer ... Elphinstone has written a fine tribute to a woman whose tale is as warm and inviting as a hot spring on a clear winter day. * * The Times * *

A haunting, compelling historical novel, The Sea Road is a daring re-telling of the 11th-century Viking exploration of the North Atlantic from the viewpoint of one extraordinary woman. Gudrid lives at the remote edge of the known world, in a starkly beautiful landscape where the sea is the only connection to the shores beyond. It is a world where the old Norse gods are still invoked, even as Christianity gains favour, where the spirits of the dead roam the vast northern ice-fields, tormenting the living, and Viking explorers plunder foreign shores. Taking the accidental discovery of North America as its focal point, Gudrid's narrative describes a multi-layered voyage into the unknown, all recounted with astonishing immediacy and rich atmospheric detail.