Sigrun's Secret (34 page)

Marie-Louise Jensen (née Chalcraft) was born in Henley-on-Thames of an English father and a Danish mother. Her early years were plagued by teachers telling her to stop reading and stop writing stories and do long division instead. Marie-Louise studied Scandinavian and German with literature at the UEA and has lived in both Denmark and Germany. After teaching English at a German university for four years, Marie-Louise returned to England to care for her children full time. She completed an MA in Writing for Young People at the Bath Spa University in 2005.

Her first novel,
Between Two Seas
, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize (2008), the Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards (2008), the Hampshire Book Award (2009), and the Branford Boase Award (2009). Her second novel,
The Lady in the Tower
, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize (2009), and the Wirral Paperback of the Year (2010).

Marie-Louise lives in Bath with her two sons.

‘Travel to Skagen and find him. Give him my letter.

Seek a better life, Marianne! Promise!’

Bound by a vow made to her dying mother, Marianne sells her few belongings and leaves Grimsby. Her destination? Denmark, where she will search for her father, Lars Christensen—the golden-haired fisherman her mother fell in love with many years before.

Will the father she has never met welcome the arrival of his illegitimate child?

And why didn’t he return for her mother, as he promised he would?

Spring 1540

I am afraid. You are in grave danger. Mother, will you run away with me if I can free you?

When a chance discovery reveals a plot to murder her mother Eleanor must save her before it is too late. But with danger and betrayal at every turn, she can trust no one. Especially not her father.

Eleanor must use all her cunning to survive. For she soon realises that it is not just her mother she needs to save … but also herself.

A sense of menace grew on me all morning. Not a vision. No glimpse of the future disturbed me. It was more a shadow of approaching danger.

Snatched by a notorious Viking chieftain, Thora is set to leave her homeland on a ship bound for Iceland. But when her captor is murdered an altogether different journey begins …

‘You have half our gifts, I have the other . . .’

When English girl, Sky, catches a glimpse of bad boy Zed in her new American high school, she can’t get him out of her head. He talks to her with his thoughts. He reads her mind. He is the boy she will love for ever. Shadows still stalk her past but a new evil threatens her future. Sky must face the dark even if it means losing her heart.

A hidden truth, mortal enemies, and a forbidden love …

As a draki forced to live in the mortal world, the one thing that makes Jacinda’s life bearable is Will. She knows she should avoid him at all costs, for Will and his family hunt her kind. But the passion he stirs within her can’t be ignored, even if it means risking her life …

• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR