Kendall Brooks’ Heart of the Wild Gods is set in the Kingdom of Wessex in 881 AD, three years after King Alfred’s victory over a Danish army at Edington. Æfre, a healer with Danish ancestry, lives outside the fortified settlement of Wōdenléah, where ancestral beliefs passed through her family still guide her. She shares a private relationship with Osric, the widowed thegn who governs the settlement, whose office keeps him close to Bishop Æthelwod. The bishop wants Wōdenléah firmly aligned with the Church and sees a politically useful marriage for Osric as part of that future. Along the River Thames, Norse chieftain Torvald Ironsight oversees a trading camp protected by the peace that followed Edington. As Æthelwod’s influence reaches further into Wōdenléah, Æfre’s place there begins to change, drawing the three lives toward the same conflict.

Kendall Brooks’ Heart of the Wild Gods is a superb novel, and Brooks does a beautiful job with period details, breathing life into ninth-century Saxon rule and its crossroads with Norse trade. The supporting cast is excellent, with recurring figures given voices that are easy to recognize from the way they speak. Brooks has an especially good ear for dialogue, which gives established friendships a wonderful familiarity. That comes through in a winter roadside meal when Yule honey cake turns three seasoned travelers into delighted boys beside the fire, their teasing suggesting years of friendship in a few lines. Brooks shines in making Wessex a character in its own right, from Wintanceaster’s stone corridors to a Norse camp where bare trees rattle in winter sleet. Intelligently written and romantic, readers who enjoy totally immersive historical fiction will adore this book.

Kendall Brooks' novel, Heart of the Wild Gods, is a thrilling and very skilfuly crafted historical novel about forbidden love and political intrigue, set in England in 881 A.D. The story includes fictional characters as well as reimagined historical figures with fictional dialogues, dramatization, and events. The Vikings control most of England. Wessex is Anglo-Saxon. Osric is the lord (thegn) of the Saxon burh (borough) of Wodenleah in greater Wessex. Afre, part Dane, is a gifted healer who lives nearby on her homestead. Osric and Afre fall deeply in love. Torvald Ironsight is the Viking chieftain (jarl) of the Norse trading routes and trading camp in Wessex, along the Thames, not far from Wodenleah. A trading treaty, under King Alfred’s authority, allows for peace and trade between the Vikings and the Saxons. However, Athelwod, Wodenleah’s bishop, greedy for wealth and more personal power over the region, schemes to drive out the Vikings, who are not Christians, and take over the trading routes himself. Athelwod turns the local people against the healer Afre, who is not a Christian, intending to drive her out of the area as well. Osric and Torvald work together to expose the Bishop’s treacherous and treasonous schemes.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Heart of the Wild Gods for its remarkable characters and the vivid, multifaceted, and skilfully interwoven worlds of the Saxons and the Vikings in 9th-century England. I loved the character development of the healer, Afre, and the challenges she faces that show her incredible courage and resilience. For me, she became the central character in the novel. I liked how Afre’s family heritage emerges as the story unfolds. I loved how the passionate romance between Afre and Osric was woven into the story, and how that love deepened, unbroken, even when the Bishop of Wodenleah forces them apart, maliciously and cruelly. I also particularly enjoyed the character development of both Osric and Torvald. I think the Bishop’s nefarious and greedy character was very well crafted against vivid settings that exposed his pomposity and pride completely. For me, the ending was poignant and profoundly moving, very well crafted. Finally, I loved the book’s terrific cover, depicting forbidden love and, at the same time, conveying the Saxon and Viking heritage of England. I highly recommend Kendall Brooks' immersive Heart of the Wild Gods to readers who enjoy medieval history and stories of forbidden love.