They didn’t have as many rights and freedoms as we like to think. NR: What did the research process for the book look like? In The Vinland Sagas she is portrayed as a nefarious woman, but in my revisionist retelling, I paint her as an innocent - as the victim of a domestic violence situation. We’ve all heard of her brother, Leif the Lucky, and her father, Eirik Eiriksson, but very little is known about Freydis. There are just one or two paragraphs about Freydis Eiriksdöttir, who travelled to North America in around 1000 A.D.

I visited the museum’s bookstore and ended up buying a copy of The Vinland Sagas. The exhibit showed that Vikings were more than just marauding villains, they had a rich culture, family was very important to them. Tamara Goranson (TG): In 2014, I visited the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, BC, which had a Viking exhibit. Naomi Racz (NR): What was the inspiration for The Voyage of Freydis? The Voyage of Freydis sings the silenced tale of Freydis Eiriksdottir, the first and only woman to lead a Viking voyage across the Atlantic in this tempestuous retelling of the Vinland Sagas set at the dawn of the 11th century. Her previous work, including an award-winning creative nonfiction piece, has appeared in the Island Writer magazine. Tamara draws on her expertise as a psychologist to explore modern day trauma themes in her novels.

in Clinical Psychology, and she works as a therapist in private practice with Adjunct Professor status at the University of Victoria. Tamara Goranson is the author of three works of historical fiction in the Vinland Viking series publishing with Harper Collins.

The Oath of Bjorn by Tamara Goranson