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The opening of Dragon Ships! is based on actual
historical events.
In 794 England was raided by Norsemen who were
thought to have come from Hordaland Fjord in Norway. It was considered
an unsuccessful raid because the war leader was killed and because two
of the five ships were smashed against the rocks in a storm. (Read the opening scene of Chapter 1,
"Attack of the Monastery in Jarrow.")
 The
survivors were killed by the villagers when they swam to shore. The book
is based on my own past life as an English woman who was captured by those
Vikings and taken from my home in Northumbria in England and brought to
what is now Norway. This upcoming historical novel is for both teens and
adults about the Norwegian Vikings.
In the middle of May in 2000, I flew into Oslo, Norway and later flew
over to Stavanger to research this past life for the novel. I looked at
a map of Norway and pointed to a place on the Hardanger Fjord (which used
to be called the Hordaland Fjord) and told my husband that's where we
had to go. He asked how I could know that's where I lived and I replied
that I just did.
We rented a car and headed north. Travel is a challenge when you're going
through the fjords on the west coast of Norway. We took a tunnel under
the Atlantic ocean and two ferries as we traveled along the narrow, windy
roads. On the second day we reached the place I'd pointed to on the map.
The farmstead I lived on has been built into a town called Rosendal nestled
in a beautiful mountain valley. The town was named after Baron Rosendal.
Although the physical structures were all completely different, the place
was just as I remembered it.
The ocean, rocky shoreline, mountains, and forest had not changed, though
much more of the land had been cleared for farmland and houses over the
years. Across from Rosendal there was even the island I remembered where
the neighbors lived who came to help us with planting and harvest. It
was an interesting experience to go back over a thousand years into my
past and to be able to find where I had lived. That life was a hard one,
but also one in which I found love and happiness.
 Read the opening scene of Chapter 1, "Attack
of the Monastery in Jarrow."
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