Ward Against Night: Grettir the Strong, Book 1 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798247387015)

The new novel from acclaimed author Reinhold Nilson, based on The Grettis Saga. Nilson follows his Lone Star Trilogy and its sequel trilogy, Fourth Strand, to explore one of Iceland's greatest stories.

At Thingvellir, law is not a thought.
It is a board. Two palms down. Witnesses close enough to count your breath.

Grettir Ásmundarson is built for songs-broad in the shoulder, quick with a blade, quicker with a grudge. He kills a man in a quarrel and learns the first rule of Iceland: the world keeps receipts. Blood-money is paid. The seal falls anyway. Three winters abroad.

He should leave quietly. He doesn't.

A haunted roof waits up the valley. A dead shepherd named Glámr makes night go wrong. Grettir fights him, wins the body-and inherits the dark. From that hour, luck sours. Lanterns stutter when he stands alone. Strength stops growing. Fear takes its own seat by the hearth.

Across the sea, he rows for fire through winter water. Smoke sticks to his name. Back home, the Althing measures rumor, death, and pride with the same cold hand.

Outlaw.

No roof. No safe harbor. No mercy unless it's loud and public. His mother, Ásdís, counts stores and favors like grain. A young clerk, uríðr, learns to keep writ and ward together. Grettir keeps walking into what refuses him-because stopping would feel too much like sense.

Author: Reinhold Nilson
ISBN-13: 9798247387015
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 03/10/2026
Pages: 540
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.57lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.09d