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by Milton Norman Franson (Author)
It's been more than 250 years since Leif "The Lucky" first set foot somewhere on the North American coast. Now, in this final chapter of "The Wineland Sagas" Leif's descendants are in a life and death struggle to survive. The "lost" Viking colony is isolated and all but abandoned by their fellow Norse in Greenland and Iceland. Contact with the old Scandinavian kingdoms has been lost; their kings are locked in their own struggles for survival. A combination of overwhelming forces threaten the lost Viking colony. They are a small group of settlers amidst a sea of Native Americans, tribes that sometimes turn hostile to the Norse outsiders. Worse, Mother Nature has sent the "Little Ice Age" into the Northern Hemisphere and frozen the sea lanes between North America and Northern Europe. The colony's lifeline is being choked off. Ships carrying iron tools and weapons can no longer supply the westernmost Norse with these absolute necessities. Even Greenland and Iceland are threatened with isolation. How can Leif's struggling descendants survive in their beautiful but dangerous Wineland the Good? Can they maintain their European culture and identity or must they merge with the Native culture to survive. Just when it seems all is lost, a succession of strong-willed women and their tough-minded men rise to confront the obstacles thrown in their path. The old "Viking Spirit" seems to be revived and promises to rescue the lost colony. A fragile chain is forged to link them to the old motherland across the sea. The one lure that would attract European kings and turn their attention to the Winelanders is gold. But there is no gold in Wineland. Or is there something more valuable? It turns out the Wineland colony is home to the greatest concentration of piscatorial "gold" in the New World; cod, the Holy Fish of a hungry Catholic Europe. Once the word gets out, the great fishing nations of Western Europe scramble to grab the prize for themselves. Will the sea lanes thaw in time for Leif's old colony to be rescued by the Nordic kingdoms? Or will some other European power gain the upper hand? I turns out there is an even more dangerous threat to not only Leif's old colony, but also to the European kingdoms themselves. It arrives in the form of a small stowaway in the hold of a Venetian merchant ship. In the end, it is the Fates who decide the destiny of the last Vikings in Wineland.
