The Valkyrie

*The Embroidered Book shortlisted for the Aurora Award for Best Novel*

From SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Kate Heartfield comes a glorious, lyrical retelling of one of Norse mythology’s greatest epics

Brynhild is a Valkyrie: shieldmaiden of the Allfather, chooser of the slain. But now she too has fallen, flightless in her exile.

Gudrun is a princess of Burgundy, a daughter of the Rhine, a prize for an invading king – a king whose brother Attila has other plans, and a dragon to call upon.

And in the songs to be sung, there is another hero: Sigurd, a warrior with a sword sharper than the new moon.

As the legends tell, these names are destined to be lovers, fated as enemies. But here on Midgard, legends can be lies…

For not all heroes are heroic, nor all monsters monstrous. And a shieldmaiden may yet find that love is the greatest weapon of all.

Genre: Fantasy

"Reading THE VALKYRIE, I felt as if I were meeting old friends again for the first time. Kate Heartfield as taken a story I've read in many incarnations and still surprised and delighted me. Practically every sentence is a brilliant kenning, glittering brightly enough to match Fafnir's hoard. This fierce and imaginative retelling, full of history and magic, does for the Ring Cycle what Atwood's Penelopiad did for The Odyssey." - Chadwick Ginther

"THE VALKYRIE is a richly-told and deeply-felt tale about finding ones place in the world. A sharp, radiant book to fit the women whose stories it recounts. Kate Heartfield is one of those rare writers who always make me feel as if what they're writing, no matter how fantastical, is true. Whatever she told me in a story, I would believe it. Gods, dragons and all." - Natalia Theodoridou