Black Shield Maiden

DEBUT Young Yafeu, enslaved when her desert village is raided, follows the woman warrior who saved her onto a dragon ship headed for the Norse fjords. Yafeu hopes to become a warrior like her savior but instead seems fated for life as a thrall far from home. Her life changes again when she is sent to guard a princess whose destiny becomes entwined with her own and the woman Viking who guides and mentors them both onto a path leading to regicide, revolution, and powerful allies in the fight to prevent Ragnarok and preserve a new way of life. Yafeu’s journey, like that of Ejii Ugabe in Nnedi Okorafor’s Shadow Speaker, is the story of a young woman who must step out of the narrow space defined for the women of her homeland and go far beyond the horizon to fulfill a big destiny, although Yafeu’s journey of coming of age and into power is set far back in history during the Viking era.