27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous, July 27, 2000
This review is from: Truly, Madly Viking (Time of Your Life) (Mass Market Paperback)
Jorund Ericsson comes back from war in the year 998, only to find his wife and twin daughters dead from a famine that has hit the Norse lands. Compounding the grief that the loss of his children brings to him is the fact that his younger brother Geirolf (The Last Viking) is missing at sea, possibly dead. Promising his father that he will find him, hopefully still alive, he and his other younger brother Magnus set sail for the area off Iceland in which Geirolf was last spotted. When the anchor on his longship becomes entangled in weeds, Jorund divests himself of his clothing and jumps overboard to remedy the situation. A few minutes later, he finds himself on the back of a killer whale, future-bound...
Dr. Maggie McBride is a psychologist that works at the Rainbow Psychiatric Hospital in Gavelston, Texas. Taking her twin daughters for a trip to Orcaland, she's surprised to discover that more than just the whales splash around naked at the marine park. When a huge, naked man wearing nothing but his swordbelt comes cruising into the park on the back of a killer whale, Maggie takes it upon herself to have him sent to the Rainbow Hospital for evaluation, rather than to jail for endangering the mammals.
Maggie and Jorund feel connected in some strange, unexplicable way from the moment their eyes first meet. Both of them have their reasons for denying the feelings they have for each other, which grow stronger every day. Maggie tells herself she can't care for Jorund because he's a patient in her mental health facility who fancies himself a tenth century Viking, whereas Jorund tries to pretend he feels nothing for Maggie because it complicates his feelings in regard to returning to the past. Both of them, however, eventually come to terms with the truth: they are afraid to make themselves vulnerable by experiencing love for another person...
Truly, Madly Viking is Sandra Hill at her wittiest, funniest, hilarious best. From her descriptions of the modern world through Jorund's eyes, to the patients of the Rainbow Hospital we come to love, to Jorund's various escapades, you'll have a hard time trying to keep a straight face while reading this book. Entangled into the hilarious scenes Hill laces throughout the whole read, is a warm your heart, make you smile love story between a man and a woman who desperately need their other half, and a man and two little girls who need the kind of magic only a parent-child relationship can bring.
As is the norm for most Sandra Hill novels, the secondary characters, specifically the patients of the Rainbow Hospital, are irresistably endearing. From Nurse Hatcher, who Jorund thinks would make a fine warrior, to Rosalyn, the nymphomaniac librarian, to Steve, the impotent Vietnam veteran (whose own story brings tears to your eyes), the well-scripted cast of Truly, Madly Viking will knock your socks off.
Even the method by which Jorund comes to the present, though penned in Hill's signature wacky comedic light, is unexpectedly refreshing. Riding naked on the back of a killer whale into the future, as ludicrous as it sounds upon first hearing it, actually calls for less of a jump in logic than most time travels, which typically use fairie rings and enchanted necklaces. (At least the whale scenario conforms to scientific theories which purport that if time travel were ever to take place, it would have to happen in water.)
I just loved the book. It's no doubt one of the funniest novels you'll read all year.
-full review originally published in The Romance Reader
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sandra Hill has a gift for writing keepers!, August 24, 2000
This review is from: Truly, Madly Viking (Time of Your Life) (Mass Market Paperback)
Truly, Madly Viking By Sandra Hill Published by Dorchester Published July, 2000
What do you get when you combine a mind-reading whale, a perfectly sane Viking warrior, a trip through time, and a modern day lady psychiatrist? Another keeper from Sandra Hill, of course!
Jorund Ericsson was on a quest to locate his missing brother when Thora, the mind-reading whale, found a way not only to communicate with Jorund but also a way to deliver him naked as the day he was born to the year 2000.
Claiming to be a Viking warrior, Jorund finds himself in a psychiatric hospital among the oddest assortment of lackwits he'd ever seen - and under the care of Dr. Maggie McBride. Now, in addition to his quest to locate his missing brother, Jorund must prove his sanity, contend with his growing attraction to Maggie, and get back to his own time where he belongs. But is his destiny in the year 998 AD or in Maggie McBride's 21st century arms?
A hilarious adventure with fabulously crafted characters and a story that is as fast paced and unforgettable as it is engaging. Sandra Hill has a gift for writing keepers!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What Do Women Really Want? A Viking., December 17, 2000
This review is from: Truly, Madly Viking (Time of Your Life) (Mass Market Paperback)
When you discover Sandra Hill's writing, the little chills start very quickly and you know you're not just in romanceland anymore.
Snug in the hands of a truly gifted author, you're swept up and spun into a world that will leave you gasping from wickedly imaginative, roaring good fun-- and ultimately wiser for the adventure.
There are the seriously funny crossed sigals between ultimate fish-out-of-water Jorund, a naked God of a Viking the likes of whom women haven't seen for the past few hundred years and Maggie, the practical psychotherapist/mother-of-two who adopts him as a patient.
But Jorund is no rape-and-pillage stereotype--Ms Hill knows alot about Viking history and even more about the many shadings of the human spirit and the oddly beautiful ways that men and women connect. Viking values aren't so bad at all, it turns out, and the conflict between Jorund's original quest and his unfolding relationship with Maggie and the girls is both clever and poignant.
In fact, this typically-flawed American male reader was reluctant to show this book to his wife out of Viking envy. Let's just say that, once you discover Jorund's brand of guyhood, you will ask as I did, "what woman in her right mind would not want her own Viking?"
This book totally satisfies at so many levels, I believe you will hope as I do that Ms. Hill's Viking Chronicles continue at least until the end of this century.
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