Bafta and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Menno Meyjes’ first novel is the exhilarating and highly original Blood Axe.

Meet Alistair…
Alistair is a Norse-mythology obsessed, neurotic, well-read and deeply unpopular teenage boy. He lives in Staines with his bulimic older sister Belle and their depressive single mother, an Amazon worker and weekend protester of the third runway at Heathrow.

Alistair is in therapy. And he does not fit in with his classmates, ‘normal’ teenagers who bully him for being different. But when he is struggling, Alistair does not pray to God – Alistair prays to the Norse Ull, and in trying to summon him, he accidentally conjures up the formidable Eric Bloodaxe. Erik idiosyncratically adjusts to contemporary living while Alistair and Belle attempt to conceal his identity from their mother.

When Erik abruptly leaves Alistair’s house, Alistair tries to follow him by climbing through the rabbit hole in the base of the oak tree where he prays to Ull. Transported to the tenth century, Alistair meets Erik’s wife – the fearsome sorceress Gunhild and Alistair’s Norse adventures begin…

As we accompany Alistair to and from the tenth century – a world far removed from his suburban house, where Bake Off blares in the background – we also travel with him through the ups and downs of adolescence and his blossoming relationship with Madelon, a Dutch girl from history class.

Vivid and mesmerising, this extraordinary title from Bafta- and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Menno Meyjes is The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole in the universe of Marvel, by way of Bukowski and Nick Cave.

Many thanks to Grace Pilkington Publicity for this guest post.

About the Author

Menno Meyjes is the screenplay writer of The Colour Purple, which was Bafta- and Academy Award-nominated. He is also the winner of a Goya Award and gained global recognition for co-writing Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. More recently, he directed Max with John Cusack in 2022. He is now releasing his first novel Blood Axe as an e-book exclusive in May.