Here is a glimpse of Looking for Erik! Hot off the press! Fresh from the box! Etc etc etc.
So looking forward to tomorrow’s launch, and sharing this wonderful book with the world.
Tag: memoir
Join the search for Erik the Red this November!
November 2017 will see us launch our second caper!
In Looking for Erik Alexandra Fitzsimmons follows tenth century Viking, Erik the Red, from Norway to Greenland via Iceland and the odd unexpected dip in a fjord.Outlaw, settler of new lands, and – perhaps literally – legend, Erik is not an easy man to catch up with. Join Alexandra to discover whether he existed, if she found him, and what she learnt about herself along the way.
Read an extract below. And watch this space for details of the launch!
There’s a shriek. I turn towards it and catch a twisting flash of white before I duck – a bird is diving straight for my face. Pulling up my hood, I turn and run. I dodge round tussocks, curse my heavy boots, and stumble. Now I have no more breath. I slow, then stop.
Right here, they threw Erik out of the country.
I sit down on a stone and breathe. Then I look up, and try, as I’ve tried so many times today, to imagine myself back a thousand years. The same hills, rising in the distance. The same colours – dull greens, mossy browns. The same sound of water lapping at the edge of the fjord.
I’m still nervous about that bird. It’s the story of this trip – each time I get close to Erik, something chases me off. I push down my hood and listen.
Just wind, and water, and a sheep, far off.
And now there are longboats in the fjord, ponies grazing, people gathering in judgement. Politicians. Poets. Farmers. Priests. An angry discussion. A judgement. The creation of an outlaw.
And a thousand years later, me – looking for that outlaw, looking, for reasons I still haven’t completely understood, for Erik.