Jun 13, 2016 | Blog, June 2016, Sandra Lake
The Northman’s Bride is the third book in the Sons of North and it’s a must read! A story of mistaken identity, love and redemption that sweep us off our feet and into a land of Vikings!
Our heroine Sovia is forced to put herself in a compromising predicament once again. When the “plan” unravels will Sovia be able to control her temper or trust her father?
Hök has learned a lot fighting to prove himself and protect his honor. In order to win a battle two vital skills are listening and the ability to stay one step ahead of his opponent.
Even under stress Sovia is strong and will fight to protect the one thing that matter’s most to her. When Hök offers her a solution to save her life it will shock them both. Will she agree? How will Hök’s family react when they discover what’s happened. The last time they saw each other it nearly cost them both everything. Many people say the truth will set you free. For Sovia, the truth might destroy her and those she loves.
Wars, conquests, trust and a secret that could destroy this new life she’s attempted to make for herself are a few of the reasons this must read will make you a fan of Sandra Lake forever! I love Sandra’s books and find her writing to be rich in details, compelling and each book takes me on a journey of the heart and soul. If you’re not into Viking romance I ask you to give this a try, it will make a fan out of you! Don’t be surprised if you find yourself googling modern day images of Viking’s ;).
While this is the third book in her A Son’s of the North series it can be enjoyed without reading her backlist. However, if you have not read The Warlord’s Wife or The Iron Princess and missed my reviews you can check it out here and then grab a copy and start your adventure!
ICYMI: Coffee With Sandra Lake
ICYMI: My review of The Warlord’s Wife Review
Get your copy here – 
The Warlord’s Wife (A Sons of the North Romance Book 1) -$4.99
ICYMI: My review of The Iron Princess
Get your copy here – 
The Iron Princess (A Sons of the North Romance Book 2) -$2.99
I received this ARC from the publisher for a fair and honest review
**************** Excerpt ****************
For the first time, Hök caught sight of Sovia flinching. The slight wince wouldn’t be noticeable to many, but she swallowed a little too hard and her eyes shifted a little too quickly around the congested hall. She was wearing nothing more than a thin rag of a garment, but she refused to tremble from the chill in the windy hall or cower in fear before her fate.
“You pose a series of problems to my court.” Sverre pointed his fork at her. “As you know, most in this hall wish to see you dead.”
Sovia’s back straightened, as if she was preparing herself to be hung at that very moment. Hök admired her self-possession. It was a shame such self-control was wasted on a woman. She would have made an excellent battle commander.
“An alternative fate has been proposed to resolve the inconvenience of your presence in my court,” the king said. “Are you not going to ask me, witch? Are you not at all curious?”
“I have never had a say in what my fate might be,” Sovia said. “Why waste your time by asking? You will do with me whatever is your will.”
“You are a clever girl,” the king said, and turned to his companions. “I have never approved of women being educated. Far too dangerous.”
“How right you are,” Jarl Brosa groaned, likely thinking of his own wife, who was known for her scheming, political mind.
“You, woman, are a problem,” the king said.
She tilted her head down—not in a full bow, but with more submission than she had shown anyone up to that point. She breathed slowly, clearly working to restrain her temper. “I do not wish to be, Your Majesty.”
The king leaned forward. “Well then, what is your wish?”
“I would return to my home in Toraslotte, Your Majesty,” she said with a distinctly meeker tone. “I would speak of your mercy and generosity and send you a generous tribute by way of my gratitude.”
“Mercy, generosity, tribute . . . lies fall off your tongue as easily as your favors. I killed your father and his men. I shamed you publicly. Why would you falsely claim I am generous to you?”
“You have slain my enemy, therefore I think you deserving of tribute.”
“Which enemy of yours did I slay?”
“My father, of course.”
Conversation broke out in the hall, and both of the king’s advisors spoke at once.
Hök kept silent, watching Sovia closely. Her words clearly had a ring of truth. She had considered her own father an enemy.
For the first time since she’d entered the hall, Lady Sovia’s eyes fell on Hök, and their eyes locked but for a moment. Her cheeks paled and her balance faltered. She took a step out to the side, and her jailer yanked her arm, holding her steady.
A murderous rage for the man that dared touch her tore through him. Hök was on his feet. She’s mine! he snarled silently from within.
Descending from the dais, Hök unwrapped his fur mantle from his shoulders. He shoved the jailer away and draped the mantle on her shoulders. As he secured his gold cloak pin, she kept her eyes and head down, refusing to meet his gaze. Good, he thought. It pleased him that she feared him. It would be simpler that way.
“Your Majesty,” Hök said. “The hour grows late. I request that you inform your prisoner of her fate and excuse me and my men so that we may prepare for our departure.” Hök bowed his head.
“So be it, comrade,” the king said. “Though you do take all the fun out of it, Hök.
“Lady Sovia, if you wish to quit my dungeon, you will enter into wedlock with Lord Hök, making him the new master of Toraslotte.” He pointed his knife at her and leaned forward across the table. “You will sign a contract stating your union with Magnusson was of your own free will, design, and desire. Heed my warning: your people will know of this generosity and mercy I have granted you, and you will be the agent of peace, uniting our country, or so help me God I will swing the axe of judgment across your pretty little neck myself.
“Whether you ever see your castle again will be the decision of Lord Hök. Do you accept these conditions, Lady Sovia?”
Her head lifted and she answered quietly. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
***** GIVEAWAY *****
Sandra Lake has generously donated THREE kindle e-book bundles of her Series A Son’s of the North Romance
for US/Canada readers only.
Each set includes a copy of The Warlord’s Wife, The Iron Princess and The Northman’s Bride!
That’s right – THREE sets of this must read series.
To enter please comment below on what you qualities would make a great Viking Warrior and be sure to follow Sandra Lake on FB, Twitter and her website!
Contest ends 6/14/16 at 10 PM EST. Winners will be randomly selected AND must comment on the blog post.
Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@RaeLatte) the blog (button on homepage) and my FB page (Books I Love A Latte ) to keep up to date on everything.
If the winners do not comment within 24 hour a new name will be drawn….don’t miss out!
Good luck to all!
Author Info:
Sandra Lake was raised in rural Canada. She married her childhood sweetheart (who during her childhood resembled more like her childhood nemesis) and is currently living happily-ever-after along with their kids and unruly husky in eastern Canada.
Jun 11, 2015 | Blog, June 2015, Sandra Lake
The Iron Princess (Sons of the North Series Book #2) by Sandra Lake is an epic viking romance full of adventure, lust, deceit and a need for independence.
Katia is the daughter of King Jarl Magnus and longs to be a soldier. The desire to experience life without constraints is paramount and she will challenge anyone under disguise to a round of sword fighting of course! After dueling Lothair, he finds himself excited and displeased at the shocking discovery. Katia’s lack of concern for safety only sears his objection to marriage freely admitting that he’d rather be married to the sea.
This “Iron Princess” will do everything to protect those she loves, even if it comes with a hefty price. When Katia finds herself in a desperate situation her hero comes from an unlikely champion. I love these characters and find myself swept away with them sailing the Baltic Sea and hoping for peace and tranquility!
Once again we are treated to a story full of passion that’s intense and magical. Family feuds. Kingdoms to conquer. Who will Katia be able to trust? No one is safe.
If only Lothair and Katia could admit they do care for each other and could be more than just friends. Sandra does a magnificent job developing the relationship between them throwing unexpected challenges in their path.
I received this ARC from the publisher for a fair and honest review. I would gladly purchase this book at a pre-order price of $2.99 for myself or as a gift! I only hope that we won’t have to wait too long for the next book to be released.
While this is the second book in a series it can be enjoyed without reading The Warlord’s Wife. If you have not read The Warlord’s Wife and missed my review you can check it out here
AND
In case you missed my Coffee With Sandra Lake – check it out here...
Author Info:
Sandra Lake was raised in rural Canada. She married her childhood sweetheart (who during her childhood resembled more like her childhood nemesis) and is currently living happily-ever-after along with their kids and unruly husky in eastern Canada.
Mar 19, 2015 | Blog, Coffee With, March 2015, Sandra Lake
Rae: First, if we were meeting at a Coffee shop I’d be drinking a Latte.
What would you be drinking?
Sandra: Mint tea, please. My naturopath guru has taken me off dairy and everything else delicious. I call it the ‘Non-Dairy, Non-Fun Program’. Before the health nutter ruined my taste pallet, it would have been a hot and creamy latte along with you.
Rae: Thank you so much for taking time to sit down and answer a few questions. I LOVED The Warlord’s Wife. Your story was absolutely spellbinding! I found it so engaging and breathtaking, as if I were truly in 12th century Sweden and Finland. What inspired you to write this story?
Sandra: The basic outline of Lida, my heroine, came from my grandmother. She had this terrible tragic life, a widow at twenty (with my mother on the way), disowned by her in-laws, she then worked tirelessly for ten years to support herself as a single mom. At 30, she remarried and had four sons. She died of breast cancer at the young age of 48.
Lida’s early years are pretty much torn from my grandmother’s diary. The glaring difference in the story I give Lida, is that her second husband wasn’t a bleep-bleep-bleep or a son of a bleep. So, in my imaginary world of Tronscar, I gave Lida a real man, Magnus, a man that starts out rough around the edges, but treats her and her daughter with love and respect.
Rae: How did you research for it?
Sandra: The setting of Sweden came to me when I hijacked my son’s school project of his family tree. My husband is half Swedish, and since I’m basically a mutt, having no ethic group to latch onto, I picked Sweden as my people. I always did love meatballs and smoked salmon. The history nerd in me then took over and for years I read any and all ‘Viking’ fiction and non-fiction.
Rae: I’m so excited to see that this is a series, how many books do you anticipate?
Sandra: Sink or swim in sales will probably answer that question better than me. I have several more completed manuscripts, following the lives of Magnus and Lida’s ‘Sons of the North’.
The one I am most entrenched in right now is book 3, Hök, Magnus and Lida’s second son. At the tender age of eighteen, he gets his heart trampled on by a beautiful, highborn Norwegian girl who is used in a ‘honey pot’ scam to extort Magnus. Years later, Hök and Sovia meet up again, she’s seconds from having her head cut off for selling secrets to Sweden’s enemies. She’s been labeled a whore by the Swedish Queen and does not shrink from the title but bolding argues that if her actions render her guilty of low morals, then so be the definition of all men. Fearing igniting a new war with Norway, the last war has just ended, Hök petitions the King to let him wed Sovia for her inherited land. The king agrees, granting this favor to Hök as a returning war hero. Their marriage begins as a battle ground, him not trusting her, disgusted with her past, Sovia using a false front of arrogant pride to cover up her deep inner pain and feelings of worthlessness. Their marriage quickly simmers into something much more…oh and Hök of course has to avenge the warlord that tries to take her from him.
I’m obsessed with Sovia at the moment. She’s damaged, been treated harshly by the world since she was a little girl, but she has an unbreakable spirit that Hök, nor I, cannot help but admire. Fingers crossed they will one day see the light of day. I really hope that there will be at least two or three more books in the series.
Rae: When is the Iron Princess being released? I’m not sure I can wait that long 🙂
Sandra: I was told this week the release date is 6/6/15. I just finished my last touch ups and I admit, I didn’t want to send it back and let Katia and Lothair go. The story is very different from The Warlord’s Wife, which I would hope classifies as a family drama, where The Iron Princess is an adventure, coming of age story for both main characters. I had so much fun writing it. It didn’t feel at all like work, more like my alone time with my best friends…did that sound as corny as I think it did?
Rae: Not at all 🙂 Thank you again- I had a great time!
8 Tantalizing Tidbits:
1. A Must read book and why? I have a hundred Must reads, but for the past few years, The Outlander Series has been on a constant rotation on my kindle; Gorgeous, crisp, poetic writing of adventure, guys in kilts, true love, marital bless one chapter and marital warfare the next. Oh, did I mention the kilts?
2. What is one place that I should see if I visit your hometown? Equestrian and nature trails are what set our small town apart. Most every day you’ll find me on a trail being dragged behind my unruly husky. A lot of my neighbors own farmettes and keep horses. At the local cafe, it’s not unusual to see women and young girls in their riding pants and boots coming from their Saturday morning riding lessons.
3. When you plot out your book do you know how it will end or do you figure it out as you go? For the majority of my stories, they are fully formed in my head before I type one word. At night, or when I’m vacuuming or doing something mindless, the entire story just pieces together and plays out, and after I have the opening scene tidied up in my head, I start to write it down. It usually comes out pretty fast after that, but then the real ‘work’ part of the process begins, edit and polish.
4. Do you watch a TV show weekly or binge watch? I find I binge read romance series more than watch TV. But it does depend on if Vikings (History Channel) or Outlander (Starz) are on, then yes, I watch weekly and take the batteries out of the remote so my husband doesn’t ‘accidentally-on-purpose’ switch it to hockey. Other than that, I don’t watch much TV. I do binge watch on Netflix from time to time, or as I call it, ‘Taking a mental health day’.
5.What is the craziest souvenir you picked up while traveling? Do you collect things when you travel? That would be the giant wood giraffe from the side of the road in Swaziland, Africa. Its head stuck out the window of the car for days, my husband and his buddy (who lives in South Africa and was touring us around the country) were not impressed, nor was the flight attendant that I begged and pleaded with to have it shoved in the first class closet. Being polite with a big smile has served me well. Overall, I try to bring back smaller tokens of local art and pottery.
6.When you are traveling do you road trip it or fly it? Both and several times a year. I caught the incurable traveling bug when I was young. Fortunately, I married someone who is equal parts gypsy and nomad. For the first fifteen years of our marriage, we worked together in his trucking company. I still have a valid trucker license to this day. We literally lived the Johnny Cash song, ‘I’ve Been Every Where Man.’
So for work, we have driven to every state and major city in Canada and the USA, several times. We travel with our kids and make summer family holiday adventures out of every town we work in. I could write a book on the best children’s museums in North America. When work slows down, in the winter, we hop on a plane and go, usually somewhere hot. We’ve seen a good chunk of the globe and forever keep finding new must see destinations.
7. If you could pick a book you’ve read and make it into a movie, which book would it be? Heather Graham’s MacAuliffe Viking Trilogy Series is probably to blame for my medieval/ Viking addiction. For me, she writes the perfect balance of an aggressive, alpha male, who are flawed but never failing. Her heroines are all stubborn beauties paired against hot, brave men sailing, righteous crusaders fighting for their families, material is gold for a movie or mini-series.
8. Do you like to cook or go out to eat? I am a chef by default. My husband is allergic to the grocery stores and all things ‘food prep’. It’s a rare medical condition that I’ve seen other husbands ailing from. My sons will not have this affliction. We regularly cook together now that they’re older…although, my Waterloo is baking. I’ve never mastered a piecrust. In ‘The Iron Princess’, Katia pitches a fit in the kitchen trying her hand at baking. It’s a tale taken from personal experience. For the most part, I’m not shy to say I’m a competent cook, ‘master of the ultimate brunch’ and host friends and family nearly every weekend.
BIO:
Sandra Lake was raised in rural Canada. She married her childhood sweetheart (who during her childhood resembled more like her childhood nemesis) and is currently living happily-ever-after along with their kids and unruly husky in eastern Canada.
Mar 18, 2015 | Blog, March 2015, Sandra Lake
The Warlord’s Wife (A Sons of the North Romance), by Sandra Lake, is a viking adventure that is set in 12th century Sweden. Lida, a recent widow, finds herself in a situation of misunderstanding and betrayal as she is “returned” home to her family, in shame. At the tender age of 16 she finds herself in a pregnancy scandal and unsure whom she can depend on. Will her family receive with open arms or shun her too?
As the years moved forward Lida always makes sure that she and her child are cared for and safe. When a warlord travels through one day, it changes everything. Jarl Magnus is a force to be reckoned with and doesn’t like disobedience. When he proclaims to his men that he wants Lida, she once again finds herself powerless and unable to be in control. What will happen when Magnus discovers she has a daughter from a previous union? Will he protect both her and the child? This man is nothing but ice and stone, just like his homeland. Can she learn to adapt? Can she have faith that her safety won’t be compromised?
Unfortunately all is not calm for Jarl Magnus in his kingdom. Some are not so welcoming to Lida as his new queen, and secrets and plans are in motion. Will she finally be able to find happiness and love? Will Magnus allow himself to show a softer side?
Discover a sweeping and majestic setting that’s filled with rich characters, a fantastic story, and a steamy romance! This is one journey you will want to take. I received this ARC from the publisher for a fair and honest review. I would happily purchase this book or give it as a gift! When I finished it I wanted more, good thing the next book in the series will be out this summer! I won’t have to wait too long 🙂
BIO:
Sandra Lake was raised in rural Canada and married her childhood sweetheart (who, like the heroes of her novels, is blond and on occasion shirtless). They are currently living happily-ever-after along with their musical sons and unruly husky.
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