Fire in the Ice

Iceland a thousand years ago is the setting for this magnificent novel. Its heroine is one of the most beautiful women — and most dangerous — in all Iceland. In Fire in the Ice, Dorothy James Roberts re-creates a legend that is as powerful and haunting as the land in which it takes place.

This is the story of Hallgerda Hos-kuldsdaughter, whose three husbands arrive at their fates directly through their involvement with her. Yet for all the clash of weapons and rip tides of hatred that swirl around her, Hallgerda remains a woman whose deep yearnings will be understood by all who have ever sought their own horizons. From her childhood she had dreamed of the sunny plains and great wealth of the Land Isles, a kingly husband and a queenly life. She is alive as few of her contemporaries are, and feels all the joys and sorrows of this gift and burden. Capable of spending a fortune for pleasure, and half terrified of love, Hallgerda is a heroine of fire and ice.

The narrative resounds with events and action, with battle and murder, with loyalty and treachery, with love and death, but Hallgerda holds her place in the foreground — a completely fascinating figure from her childhood to the climactic and symbolic moment of her judgment of her last husband, the great hero Gunnar of the Land Isles.

Permeating the majestic sweep of this story is a superb evocation of the land — the hard yet starkly splendid Icelandic existence of the tenth century. There are the daily routine of life in the sprawling steads, the month-long feasts and sacrifices to Thor and Odin, and the annual Parliament at Thingvellir where the chieftains gather to settle their disputes and exchange tales of daring adventures abroad. From the flashing glaciers to the furrowed sea, that tough and awesome land leaps into startling view, so vividly brought to life that the reader achieves a rare total immersion in another time and place.