Heriot: A Novel of the Norman Conquest

It is England, 1064 AD. A vicious massacre has left Rheagan of Wulfton orphaned as a young child. Fortune favors her when her guardianship falls to her beloved grandfather, Thegn Wulfric. Having enjoyed a sheltered life of freedom, surrounded by the pastoral beauty of Anglo-Saxon Kent, Rheagan is distraught to learn that upon his impending death, she will be forced to marry King’s Thegn, Ravn, the lord of a neighboring estate who is nearly as ancient as Wulfric.Though educated to take on the burden of managing an estate, nothing prepares Rheagan to care for Ravn’s two unruly children, to wrangle with his much larger demesne entrenched in years of escalating iniquities against its tenants, and to survive the hostility and threats from members of his household. Due to Ravn’s prolonged absences as he fulfills his court duties to King Edward the Confessor, Rheagan is forced to battle her obligations to Ravnsdör alone, despite uncovering the shocking possibility that Ravn may have played a role in the death of her parents.While she unravels the threads of deceit that will ultimately end in murder, Rheagan’s circumstances manage to become far more dire when the entire nation is thrown into chaos upon the death of King Edward and the succession of Harold Godwinson to the throne. Declared Heriot and dragged into the clandestine intrigue that will culminate in the brutal Norman invasion, Rheagan must learn to find happiness while navigating the plunder of her life and of her country. Read more