The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of
Yondersaay
by Aoife Lennon-Ritchie
Publication Date: October 11, 2016
Publisher: Tantrum Books
This winter, siblings Ruairi and Dani
Miller visit their ancestral homeland: the legendary Viking island of
Yondersaay. Even with Granny Miller's storytelling to pass the time,
the pair manage to find trouble. In less than twenty-four hours of
their arrival, Ruairi is mistaken for the lost Boy King of Denmark,
kidnapped by Vikings, and scheduled to be sacrificed at sundown.
Granny isn’t very pleased.
But when everyone except them goes
Viking, the three turn to Granny’s epic tales of the legends of
Yondersaay, The Gifts of Odin, and King Dudo the Mightily Impressive
for clues. But not all stories end happily, and Ruari, Dani, and
Granny will have to write their own happy ending.
The Princess Bride meets Vikings in
this enchanted tale of high adventure, buried treasure, villainous
treachery, violent ends, and – of course – true love. Aoife
Lennon-Ritchie's debut middle grade novel, THE EXTREMELY EPIC VIKING
TALE OF YONDERSAAY, is a humorous and heartwarming story for readers
ages 9+.
Link
to Goodreads:
Purchase
Links:
***GUEST POST***
Hello WS
Momma,
This
excerpt from The
Extremely Epic Viking Legend of Yondersaay
will give you an idea about what to expect when you pick up the book.
Hamish Sinclair is a baddie, a Viking who wants to capture and
sacrifice eleven year old Ruairi Miller before sunset on Christmas
eve. He’s also a butcher. Even baddies have day jobs.
In this
section Ruairi Miller and his sister Dani come face to face with
Hamish for the first time.
When
Ruairi made it through the door, some incomer was asking the butcher,
out of politeness, while she was waiting for her ham to be sliced and
wrapped, why he’d decided to become a butcher. He let out a sigh,
crossed his arms, and rolled his eyes at her. The colored bits went
so far up in his head that Ruairi thought they would get stuck up
there and then what would he do.
“I’m
Hamish Sinclair, and the Sinclairs are the butchers like the
Andersons are the teachers and the MacFadyens are the
whiskey-makers,” he boomed at her. “Because if I wasn’t a
butcher, then there would be no such thing as a Sunday roast or a
midsummer barbecue or a chicken sandwich. On Sundays, there’d be
carrots and potatoes and parsnips and a big gap in the middle of the
table. It would be confusing. People would still be hungry after
Sunday lunch, and they wouldn’t know why.
“And
what would be done with all the extra animals, I ask you? The island
would be positively chock-a-block with over-woolly sheep and
geriatric cows. Not to mention the ferocious smell of poo. People
wouldn’t be able to walk for poo. There’d be poo everywhere. And
you’re mad if you think I’m going to spend my days going around
cleaning up cow poo and herding pigs and chickens off the High Street
so people can walk down it.”
When
his eyes did flicker over Ruairi and Dani, they gasped. Hamish seemed
utterly indifferent to them, and despite themselves, Dani and Ruairi
found themselves inching forward so they could look more closely at
him.
“That’s
the man from the River Gargle whirlpool,” Dani whispered to Ruairi
without moving her lips.
“Definitely.
He’s even bigger in real life.”
“He
was in real life last night,” Dani said.
“I
mean up close. He’s even more massive up close. What is he?
Half-giant, half-gorilla?”
“Or
one quarter mountain, three quarters abominable snowman?”
Eventually
they stopped whispering and just stood there, trying very hard not to
stare at Hamish Sinclair.
Hamish
Sinclair was poured into white wellies and a white butcher’s coat
that looked like a sausage skin on him. If you pronged him with a
fork, he might explode. He wore a white hairnet under a baseball cap.
There was a chance he wasn’t pleased about the hairnet, it wasn’t
the most manly-looking accessory; Ruairi imagined a great deal of
effort had gone into disguising it and tucking the edges under the
cap.
The
butcher’s shoulders were wider than the entire meat counter. His
head skimmed the shop ceiling. And to say he was hairy was an
understatement; his forearms needed hairnets.
The
thing that made Hamish not just big but scarily big was not his
height or his width or his hugely muscular arms and thighs. What made
the difference was his voice—so deep, so booming, and so loud that
even if he were tiny it would give the impression of a giant
speaking. He wasn’t smiling, and he wasn’t talking cheerfully
about the weather, like everyone else they’d met on the island.
Mum
and Granny ordered a turkey and a ham for Christmas dinner and
sausages and bacon and black and white pudding for tea. They ordered
venison for venison stew and sliced meats for sandwiches. They talked
about getting a turducken—a chicken inside a duck inside a
turkey—for Christmas dinner instead of a turkey and a ham but
decided against it in the end.
“Raising
chickens inside ducks inside turkeys could be cruel if not carried
out in a closely monitored and regulated environment,” Mum
ventured. “A chicken couldn’t possibly have much quality of life
if it grew up inside the bum of a duck. And the poor turkey with both
a chicken and a duck in its bum. What if the chicken and the duck
didn’t get on and started pecking? It doesn’t bear thinking
about.”
“Is
it organic?” Granny wanted to know.
“Free-range,”
Hamish grunted.
“All
the same, best not,” Granny said. “Maybe next year.”
“I’ll
have your order run over to Gargle View Cottage later this afternoon,
Granny Miller,” Hamish said. He did not ask for Granny’s name
because he already knew it. He did not ask for Granny’s address
because he already knew that too. Ruairi was not thrilled that this
particular person knew where they lived, but everybody knew everybody
on Yondersaay, so of course he knew Granny’s address. Mum thanked
Hamish Sinclair and wished him a Merry Christmas, and they all left
the shop.
“Watch
out for the mad one on your way out—she’s back from her break,
out there yelling ‘No meat!’” Hamish Sinclair called out to
them as they were leaving. “Real
men
eat nothing but meat … and the occasional Cadbury’s creme egg.”
Ruairi
had a quick glance back into the shop on his way out the door.
He
caught Hamish Sinclair looking straight at him. Ruairi couldn’t
move—he was held in the stare. He felt Dani tug at his arm and let
himself be led out of the shop. The last thing Ruairi saw as they
exited was the giant butcher picking up a tiny phone, and dialling a
number.
****************
Irish actor and writer Aoife
Lennon-Ritchie studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, the Universita
di Catania in Italy, University College Dublin in Ireland, and
the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Aoife holds
diplomas, degrees and a Masters in the multiple fields of business
and information technology, English and classic literature,
theatre and creative writing; she looks forward to doing her PhD
in Film and Media. Always searching for new adventures, Aoife
has lived in the UK, France, Greece, Italy, and several US
cities, including Chicago, New York and Pittsburgh. She speaks
three (and a half) languages. Although she was once an
investment banker, she much prefers acting, fencing, writing,
and being a mum. She currently lives in Cape Town with her
handsome husband and two small children.
Giveaway
Information: Contest ends October 28, 2016
- One (1) winner will receive a scrabble tile book cover charm (US ONLY)
- Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay by Aoife Lennon-Ritche (INT)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting and posting a comment - however if you post a link to a different product website on a product review your comment will NOT be posted as that is spam and unwanted and it is downright unethical to do that and will not be tolerated.