Amanda Blackwood

Before I ever wrote the first page of my Viking series, I had to answer a question that had bothered me for years. Who were the Vikings really? Not the horned-helmet warriors from movies. Not the mystical giants of legend. Not the larger-than-life figures who seem to stride through mythology with lightning in their hands and destiny at their backs. I wanted the people. To prepare for the series, I spent months surrounded by books on Viking lore, sagas, archaeology, and Norse mythology. My...

Preparing to write my Pirate Women series was not something I approached casually. If I was going to tell the stories of real women who lived, fought, and survived in one of the harshest environments imaginable, I wanted to do it properly. That meant research. A lot of it. Before I wrote a single chapter, I spent months immersing myself in the world of the Golden Age of Piracy. I wanted to understand not just the legends we all grew up hearing about, but the daily realities of life at sea....