The Briton and the Dane

King Alfred the Great has thwarted the Viking threat against his kingdom of Wessex. Signing a treaty with the formidable Danish King Guthrum, he succeeds in pushing the heathen army back to the rolling fens of East Anglia. An uneasy peace holds sway: The King establishes a standing army under Lord Richard, who takes command of the citadel at Wareham.

In the wake of a hard-won triumph, England’s peace hangs by a thread. A wronged Norseman, denied his rightful place, rallies a legion of forsaken warriors. His eyes burn with the fury of the betrayed, and his ambition threatens to set the kingdom ablaze. From Kent’s windswept shores to Northumbria’s shadowed wilds, one ruler girds for war, his future staked on fragile alliances and fading hope. As the armies gather on the silent plains of Thetford, fate prepares its blade, and history holds its breath.

Victory is fleeting, and peace is an illusion. As war drums echo across the land, a king who once triumphed over his enemies faces a treacherous new threat. A sea invasion, born of betrayal, erupts into a brutal clash upon frigid tides. Viking forces press in as the ruler rallies what remains of his fractured realm. Amid the chaos, one woman’s desperate quest for peace spirals beyond her grasp, dragging countless souls toward ruin. When vengeance fuels the enemy and the gods demand blood, only the brave will stand when the tide recedes.

Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man. As she awaits her fate in the Moorish captain's bed, by sheer chance she discovers that salvation is at hand in the gilded court of a Saracen nobleman.

When a medieval portrait draws historian Gwyneth Franger into a forgotten fortress, her research uncovers more than a mystery; it becomes a gateway. Catapulted into the final days before the Norman invasion, she finds herself in the arms of a man history says must die. Trapped in the eleventh century, she navigates shifting allegiances, ancient tunnels, and a fate that’s already been written. But destiny is not fixed. And some secrets can echo across bloodlines.