I do feel the section that deals with her life among the Iceland/Greenland Norse is better-written than her time in England. Merewyn, to whom we should feel attached, falls a bit flat for me, and displays a kind of inconsistency of character that bothers me as well. It is primarily the person stories that lack impact. The influences of both the raiding Norsemen and the Christian church are well-presented. Their lives intersect several times, as they thread their ways through the royal house of first King Edgar and then Ethelred the Unready. The story traces a Cornish girl, Merewyn, who is revealed to be a result of a Viking raid, and Rumon, a French descendant of Charlemagne. I now have a better understanding of how the very important Norman conquest came to be and why the Normans came to sit on the throne of England. However, I did enjoy getting a glimpse of this time period, which is not one that is encountered that often. The plot of a bit plodding and fairly unsophisticated. A historical novel based on events that occurred in the 10th Century in England, Iceland, and Greenland, Avalon did not live up to my expectations of Anya Seton.
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