C.J. Adrien

"For indeed the Frankish nation, which was crushed by the avenger Hasting, was full of filthy uncleanness. Treasonous and oath-breaking, they were deservedly condemned; unbelievers and faithless, they were justly punished." (Dudo of St. Quentin, Gesta Normannorum) Orphaned as a child by a blood...

Power. Revenge. Forbidden love in the heart of a dying empire. When Viking warlord Hasting arrives at the gates of Constantinople, he knows he can't conquer it. Not with deeds of arms alone. But fate has other plans. His failed raid turns into an opportunity: serve Empress Theodora as her...

King Horic is dead. The oaths that once bonded the Danes and Northmen in the islands of Aquitaine have broken. Hasting's new land is imperiled by fearsome challengers and old foes alike. A rumor from the continent will expose his deepest wound from the past....

For Hasting the Avenger, fame and glory were supposed to last forever. Two years after the legendary sack of Paris, Hasting remains haunted—not by his triumph but by the bitter twist of fate that Ragnar’s name made it into the songs of the Skalds and not his. Drowning in resentment and drink...

843 AD The city of Nantes Burns. An unexpected betrayal forces Hasting to abandon his closest ally. With his heart turned black, he rekindles the savagery of his race. In sacking Nantes, his bravery and luck earn him a place in the skalds' songs. Word of his deeds reach his kin in the North, and...

Northmen sacked the monastery at dawn before anyone had awakened. They burned the village and slaughtered all who stood in their path....

From bestselling and award-winning author C. J. Adrien comes a tale of hardship, friendship, and love on the American Frontier. In the bustling frontier town of St. Louis, New Yorker Christian dreams of wealth in the fur trade, only to find himself perilously ill-equipped for its harsh realities...