The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker

Ultimate imagined story of the founding Norwegian Viking families. There are the same political alliances, sworn oaths and bloodshed that you find in the other cultures but this story starts with a jolt and spirals with twice the action. Ragnvald wants to take over his birthright and wed the beautiful Hilda but must first survive an assassination attempt, the loss of his land by the very man who held it and paid to have him done in and the assassin himself. Solvi wants Ragnvald's sister for himself but she will have nothing to do with the man who tried to kill her brother and then buy his way out of it until she begins to see him for who he really is and the freedom he can offer her. Dramatic and blood thirsty representation of a proud race where loyalty, courage and political alliances meant everything-
even more than family.