Please join me in welcoming Donovan Cook to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his novel, Odin’s Betrayal.

Two kingdoms destined for war, one boy caught in the eye of the storm…

Francia AD853

After a failed Viking raid on the Frankish coast over 20-years-ago, Jarl Sven the Boar is forced to leave his only son, Torkel, as a hostage and warned never to raid Francia again or his son will die.

In Hügelburg, a small town in East Francia, Torkel and his 9-year-old son Charles are ambushed at home.

Before dying, Torkel thrusts a package into young Charles’s hands and tells him to flee Francia for Denmark in search of his grandfather Sven the Boar’s protection.

But the man Charles eventually finds is not who he expects, and Charles must put his fate in the hands of a man betrayed by Odin.

Together they must uncover the significance of the package and why the Kings of Francia want Charles dead.

*****

When Charles loses his father, the nine-year-old must find his way to Denmark and locate his grandfather whilst avoiding trackers and traitors.

Before I started reading, I had an expectation that this was going to be a little heavy on the history. However, once I passed the prologue, I discovered it’s led very much by the story and the characters.

You can’t help but feel for young Charles, a boy of danish decent raised in Francia as a Christian, having to turn to those he’s been taught are heathens for his own safety.

He is faced with trials that very much go against his world view and he is forced to learn some hard lessons.

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