After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.

Returning from fighting in the Crusades, the young Saxon knight Ivanhoe must fight to regain the woman he loves and to protect the social order and monarchy of England.

Uhtred has been made Governor of London while Alfred, building fortified towns to hold Wesssex, pushes into Mercia.

"Uhtred of Bebbanburg is a man of his word. An oath bound him to King Alfred. An oath bound him to AEthelflaed. And now an oath will wrench him away from the ancestral home he fought so hard to regain. For Uhtred has sworn that on King Edward's death, he will kill two men. And now Edward is dying. A violent attack drives Uhtred south with a small band of warriors, and headlong into the battle for kingship. Plunged into a world of shifting alliances...

A fragile peace governs the kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia, under the rule of the late King Alfred's son, King Edward, and Mercia, under his daughter Aethelflaed. Uhtred, her formidable champion and greatest warrior, controls the northern parts from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But no one can prepare them for the storm that is about to descend. The Northmen, allied to the Irish, come in force under the cover of night, up the Mersey, perhaps...