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The usual picture of a Viking involves a horned helmet and a lot of screaming. There is no archaeological evidence that Viking warriors wore horned helmets, and the image is widely traced to the costumes Carl Emil Doepler designed for an 1876 production of Wagner’s Ring cycle.
The novels below look at the Viking Age from other angles. They follow raiders and kings, but also explorers, sisters, scribes and a Scottish earl who may or may not have been Macbeth. Many of them draw on the sagas or on historical records, and they range from battle-heavy adventure to slow, demanding literary fiction.
These are the ten I’d recommend to someone who wants to get into Viking fiction, plus a bonus Viking inspired fantasy pick at the end for those of you that want to mix and match your genres.
If you want more of historical fiction recommendations, see our wider guide to the best historical fiction books.
Goodreads ratings were checked on 4 October 2026.
The 10 books at a glance
| # | Book | Author | Best for | Goodreads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Last Kingdom | Bernard Cornwell | A first Viking Age novel | 4.27 |
| 2 | Raven: Blood Eye | Giles Kristian | Close-up action and loyalty | 4.05 |
| 3 | The Whale Road | Robert Low | Gritty raiding with dry humour | 3.82 |
| 4 | Shieldwall | Justin Hill | The Viking Age from the English side | 3.99 |
| 5 | The Long Ships | Frans G. Bengtsson | Humour and adventure | 4.27 |
| 6 | Viking: Odinn’s Child | Tim Severin | Voyages across the Norse world | 3.77 |
| 7 | The Half-Drowned King | Linnea Hartsuyker | Politics and a sister’s story | 3.74 |
| 8 | Wolfsangel | M.D. Lachlan | Werewolves and Norse myth | 3.49 |
| 9 | King Hereafter | Dorothy Dunnett | A long, demanding read | 4.25 |
| 10 | The Sea Road | Margaret Elphinstone | Exploration and Vinland | 3.85 |
| Bonus | The Shadow of the Gods | John Gwynne | Norse-inspired fantasy | 4.18 |
What makes Viking historical fiction good
A decent Viking novel needs more than longships and axes (although those elements do go a long way). The best ones tend to share a few things:
- Real historical bones. Battles, kings and raids taken from sagas, chronicles or archaeology, even when the main characters are invented.
- A sense of the everyday. Rowing takes hours, winters are long, and someone has to gut the fish.
- Complicated politics. Viking Age Scandinavia was a patchwork of rival kings and chieftains, and alliances shifted often.
- Voice. A narrator needs to sound like they belong to the period, not like a modern tourist in fur boots.
Keep that checklist in mind and the list below should make sense as more than a pile of books with Vikings in the title.
The 10 best Viking historical fiction books
1. The Last Kingdom (Saxon Stories) by Bernard Cornwell
4.27 on Goodreads from more than 116,000 ratings. First published 2004.
Uhtred of Bebbanburg is a Northumbrian nobleman’s son who is captured by the Danes as a child and raised by them. By the time they attack Wessex he almost thinks of himself as a Dane, which makes him a useful narrator for Alfred the Great’s wars. He sees the English and the Danes from both sides.
The fighting is brutal and tactical, and it stays tense even when you know Alfred survives. The series runs to 13 novels, and Uhtred’s wish to win back his family’s fortress at Bebbanburg carries through them. The books were also adapted for television. If you want one entry point into Viking Age historical fiction, I’d start here.
2. Raven: Blood Eye by Giles Kristian
4.05 on Goodreads from about 5,600 ratings. First published 2009.
The Raven trilogy opens in ninth-century England with Osric, a young man who is feared and shunned for a mysterious past and a blood-red eye. Taken in by a band of Norsemen, he proves a natural warrior and forms a close bond with their leader, Sigurd, who renames him Raven. The crew’s mission is to raid deep into Mercia for a holy book held by King Coenwolf.
The violence is close-up and grim, and the friendships are what hold the book together. It’s a good next step if you’ve finished The Last Kingdom and want something rougher. The trilogy continues with Sons of Thunder and Odin’s Wolves.
3. The Whale Road by Robert Low
3.82 on Goodreads from about 3,200 ratings. First published 2007.
Young Orm Rurikson is plucked from the snows of Norway to join his estranged father on the Fjord Elk, and ends up among the Oathsworn, a band of raiders chasing the secret hoard of Attila the Hun. Orm is young and out of his depth, which gives the story an edge, because you are watching someone find out what he is capable of.
Readers on Goodreads mention the gritty action and the dry humour between the crew. It is the first of five Oathsworn novels.
4. Shieldwall by Justin Hill
3.99 on Goodreads from about 480 ratings. First published 2011.
It is 1016. Viking armies blockade London, King Ethelred is dying, and Godwin, barely out of boyhood, is on his way to becoming one of England’s great warriors. When Ethelred’s son Edmund takes the throne, he makes Godwin his right-hand man, and the book follows them through three great battles against the Danes.
Shieldwall was a Sunday Times Book of the Year and is the first book in the Conquest Trilogy. The second, Viking Fire, follows Harald Sigurdsson. It has far fewer Goodreads ratings than most books on this list, so treat the 3.99 with that in mind. It’s a good choice if you want to see the Viking raids from the English side.
5. The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
4.27 on Goodreads from about 13,900 ratings. First published 1941.
Bengtsson published this in Swedish as two books, in 1941 and 1945, and the English edition combines them. It follows Red Orm, who is abducted as a boy by Vikings and put to the oars of their ship. He is later captured by the Moors in Spain, fights for the Caliph of Córdoba, washes up in Ireland, and eventually returns home a rich Christian. The story is set in the late tenth century.
It is told with wit and high spirits, and to my mind it is the funniest book on this list. The New York Review Books Classics edition has an introduction by Michael Chabon. With a 4.27, it ties with The Last Kingdom for the highest Goodreads rating among the ten.
6. Viking: Odinn’s Child by Tim Severin
3.77 on Goodreads from about 3,400 ratings. First published 2005.
Tim Severin was a British explorer best known for retracing legendary journeys, including the Sindbad voyage, and he brought that interest to this trilogy. Thorgils Leiffson, son of Leif the Lucky and Thorgunna, arrives in Greenland as a toddler in the year 1001 and is raised by a young woman called Gudrid. His life then takes him across the Norse world. Later books in the trilogy take him to London in 1019 and to Constantinople in 1035, where he serves in the Varangian guard.
The book is framed as Thorgils’s own account, written in old age, and it has less fighting than most on this list. If you’ve read Cornwell and want a book that follows the map outward instead of staying in England, start here.
7. The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker
3.74 on Goodreads from about 5,500 ratings. First published 2017.
Hartsuyker draws on the Icelandic sagas to tell the story of Ragnvald Eysteinsson. He is left for dead after his stepfather’s betrayal, is rescued by a fisherman, and later rises as a commander under King Harald Fairhair, the first king of all Norway. Alternating chapters follow his sister Svanhild, who wants a marriage that will give her more freedom than the roles open to women in her world usually allow.
The sibling structure is what makes the book stand out. You get the warfare and politics through Ragnvald and a different view of the same world through Svanhild. It is the first of three books, and it’s a good pick if you want a woman’s perspective at the centre of the story.
8. Wolfsangel by M.D. Lachlan
3.49 on Goodreads from about 1,300 ratings. First published 2010.
This is the odd one on the list, and I like it for that. Viking raiders kidnap two infant brothers. Vali is groomed as heir to King Authun, while Feileg is raised as a werewolf by the witch Gullveig, who is scheming against Odin. The series follows the conflict between a werewolf, Odin and Loki through the ages, with the characters reincarnated along the way. The second book, Fenrir, is set about a century later, during the Viking siege of Paris.
It has the lowest Goodreads rating on this list, and it is historical fantasy, so it won’t suit readers who want their Vikings strictly grounded. If you also read fantasy and want the two genres to collide on purpose, it’s worth a try. For more of that blend, see our guide to the best historical fantasy books.
9. King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
4.25 on Goodreads from about 2,300 ratings. First published 1982.
Dunnett builds a novel of more than 700 pages (the exact count depends on the edition) on the theory that Thorfinn, Earl of Orkney, and Macbeth, King of Alba, were the same man. Whether or not you buy the history, it is set in the Norse-ruled earldom of Orkney and in eleventh-century Scotland, and it follows Thorfinn from an angry young earl to a king.
It is dense, with long stretches of political plotting and genealogy. Dunnett is best known for the Lymond Chronicles, and this is the only standalone among her historical novels. It isn’t a quick read and probably isn’t a first Viking novel, but if you’ve worked through the rest of this list and want a demanding, rewarding book, this is a strong choice.
10. The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone
3.85 on Goodreads from about 650 ratings. First published 2000.
A quieter pick to close on. The Sea Road is narrated by Gudrid, a woman who appears in the Icelandic sagas, including Eirik’s Saga. The novel follows her from Iceland to Greenland and on to Vinland (North America, roughly 500 years before Columbus), and later to Norway and Rome. She tells her story to a scribe in a Tuscan monastery at the end of her life, which gives the book a reflective, confessional tone.
It was Elphinstone’s first historical novel and won a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book Award. Its focus is exploration and settlement, which makes it a good reminder that the Viking Age included long sea voyages and new communities as well as raids.
Bonus: a Viking-inspired fantasy
The Shadow of the Gods (Bloodsworn Saga) by John Gwynne
4.18 on Goodreads from more than 112,000 ratings. First published 2021.
This one is fantasy, set in an invented, Norse-inspired world where the old gods have warred themselves to extinction. Three characters carry the story. Orka is searching for her abducted child, Elvar is trying to prove herself as a warrior in the Battle-Grim clan, and Varg, once a thrall, is looking for freedom and a place to call home.
In my full review of The Shadow of the Gods I scored it 4.5/5 for plot and 5/5 for characters, and called it brutal Norse-inspired fantasy that earns the comparisons to Joe Abercrombie. It is the first book of the Bloodsworn Saga, which is now complete. On Goodreads, The Hunger of the Gods scores 4.48 and The Fury of the Gods 4.46. If you want more from Gwynne, see the best of John Gwynne, or browse our list of grimdark fantasy books.
Where to start if you’re new to Viking historical fiction
If battles and clear forward momentum are what you want, start with The Last Kingdom or Raven: Blood Eye. If you want something funnier and stranger, go straight to The Long Ships.
If you want the genre pushed somewhere unexpected, try Wolfsangel or The Sea Road. They go in opposite directions. One pulls Norse myth into werewolf territory, and the other follows a Viking woman from Iceland to Vinland and then to a monastery in Tuscany, where she tells her own story for once.
None of these books need horned helmets. What they have instead is real feuds, real weather, real politics and narrators who sound like they’ve gutted a fish in the rain. Start wherever your reading mood points you and work outward. If you’re still not sure, the Litloop reading quiz can suggest a next book, and you can browse more titles in our historical fiction genre hub.
Ten books is plenty to build a reading list on. If you log them on Litloop, you’ll also have a more honest record of which ones you actually finished than your memory will give you.
Viking historical fiction FAQ
What is the best Viking historical fiction book to start with? The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell is the one I’d suggest first. It has 4.27 on Goodreads from more than 116,000 ratings, and it is the first of 13 novels if you want to keep going. If you would like something funnier, try The Long Ships.
Which of these books are standalone novels? The Long Ships is published in English as a single volume, King Hereafter is Dorothy Dunnett’s only standalone historical novel, and The Sea Road is a single novel. The rest are the first books in series or trilogies.
Which book on this list has the highest Goodreads rating? The Last Kingdom and The Long Ships are tied at 4.27. King Hereafter follows at 4.25.
Is The Shadow of the Gods historical fiction? No, it is fantasy. It is set in an invented world inspired by Norse mythology, which is why it appears as a bonus pick.
Did Vikings really wear horned helmets? There is no archaeological evidence that they did. The image is widely traced to costumes designed by Carl Emil Doepler for Wagner’s Ring cycle in 1876.
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