Sometimes a writer creates an idea. Sometimes an idea creates a writer.
An authentic novel about Viking-era Iceland never landed on Katie’s to-do list, but life decided otherwise, when one December, Vikings came crashing into her peaceful evening. A startling (and uncomfortable) epiphany left Katie with the clear understanding that she was to write a book based on people of Viking-era Iceland.
That dramatic experience resulted in her Norse Adventure series. Book I, The Plains of Althing introduces readers to Kel Coesson, who works as the steward of a cruel, petty chieftain. Kel stays for one reason only: should he leave, the chieftain will kill Aldís, the only woman Kel has ever loved. You’ll also meet an enslaved but powerful man called ‘Black Mountain’, see the stage set for the coming conflict between pagan beliefs and oncoming Christianity—and learn of a secret that tore Aldís and Kel apart years ago. All this is set amid growing instability of Iceland’s rule of law and the country’s young democracy, celebrated each year at the midsummer festival at Althing.
Thunder Horse (Book II) continues the story, opening with a vikinger sailing into danger deep in Norway’s famed Trondheim fjord, and introduces a mysterious captive to the returning characters from The Plains of Althing. Betrayals, escapes, and the dramatic landscape of Iceland once again figure in a story that moves forward ruthlessly towards a showdown between privilege and entitlement against rule of law.
Book III, The Green Land, takes readers on a voyage, where they learn for the first time the true identity of the seafarer known simply as ‘Tiller’ and of a beautiful liar called ‘Fishgirl’. Ritter explores what could have happened when Icelandic explorers of the sagas first encountered Greenland, envisioning the ‘first contact’ that certainly must have occurred sometime after this profoundly important discovery of the Americas by Europeans—and the beginning of future Norse trading with the inhabitants of Greenland and L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
Ritter does not dabble in horned helmets or pillaging: her work appeals to readers who yearn for deep, well-crafted historical fiction. Male and female readers alike have offered critical acclaim for her award-wining debut novel.
She enjoyed a twenty-plus year career in software – sales, database customizations, and IT project management. Following that, she did successful fundraising for a nationally-renowned private school. Ritter has done freelance writing for magazines and local newspapers, and was tapped to be launch editor for a hyper-local regional print publication. She wrote content for an architectural monograph for an international architecture/planning company (DDG: THE MASTER ARCHITECT SERIES REVISITED), and produced complex case studies and white papers about Sugar CRM installations.
She holds a degree in biology from Swarthmore College, and is active in the Alliance of Independent Authors and the Historical Fiction Authors Cooperative, the Historical Novel Society and its Chesapeake Chapter.
Ritter lives in rural Maryland with her husband Mark and an assemblage of pets thoughtfully bestowed by their children. She loves to walk, dance, procrastinate, build stone walls, and feels the need for pearls and high heels when cleaning the oven (which really doesn’t need to be done but once a decade or so, if one really thinks about it.)
She welcomes reader contact via the following:
Website/ Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / GoodReads
Historical Fiction by Katie Aiken Ritter Featured on this Website
Norse Adventure Series
