Jan Ove Ekeberg

Legionnaire. The Barbarians from the North

Legionær: Barbarene fra nord

Prepare yourself for a riveting story.

Early in the fourth century, the Roman Empire was struck by a fresh outbreak of unrest. The vast global empire, with its thousands of towns and fifty million inhabitants, was coming apart at the seams. Civil war loomed. There was strife further north, too, in the region close to the outer edges of the world known to the Romans as Scandinauia. People there made a decent living out of iron sales to the Romans. But the relentless work of burning charcoal and smelting iron from bog ore yields poor returns when ships’ cargoes are stolen and menfolk killed. Now, the people of Scandinauia are forging the iron into weapons of their own. The charcoal burners and iron smelters are preparing for war.
Four fascinating characters stand in the centre of this dramatic historical novel – three of them fictional, the last one historical. Nithijo – a young man from the kingdom of Rygir in South-West of Norway. Urd – a young woman, raised by the old shaman, from the kingdom of Öland in the Baltic Sea. And Gaois – second in command in the army of the Jutes in Denmark. The fourth and last character we meet, is the young Constantin, son of the emperor. Soon their tracks cross and new unexpected connections are made.

Photo: Celina Øier

Jan Ove Ekeberg (b. 1954) lives in Fredrikstad, journalist and till recently; head of TV 2 Financial News. Today he is a fulltime author. He has written several non-fiction books, children’s literature and several historical suspense novel series. His first series, In Times of Swords (three volumes), is set in the 12th century. His second series, The Last Viking King (five volumes) tells the story of Harald Hardrada and is set in 11th century. In his new series, Legionnaire, the story is set in Scandinavian Roman era, in the 4th century. Jan Ove Ekeberg has recently published a first volume of a graphic novel-series called Hardrada together with illustrator Nils Axle Kanten.