From the steps of the Big House where the two girls sat, it was possible to see past the market commotion through the open city gates to the brown trail that sloped towards the blue water, where the ships had docked.

Kama is a young woman living in a Viking settlement midway between Constantinople and southern Denmark in 900 AD. Her father is the son of King Gnupa, her mother a former slave. Tragic events set Kama on a journey to fulfill her destiny in Hedeby. Crossing the Baltic Sea to reach her grandmother, Queen Astrid, she heroically withstands the brutal laws and rites that govern and tyrannize women. Kama is not a historical novel, although many aspects are true—including the ritual slaying of slave girls.

Advance praise

"KAMA is a marvel of storytelling, mixing impressive erudition with compelling action. In Terese Brasen's distant mirror, a gritty, unflinching view of tenth century Europe casts a haunting reflection on violence against women in our 21st century. Kama's turbulent quest is a timeless tale of enslavement and empowerment."

- Jake Lamar, author of Bourgeois Blues and Rendezvous Eighteenth

"In KAMA, Terese Brasen resurrects and reimagines a kind of Viking ballad from the fierce perspective of its women: queens, slaves, angels of death and instruments of destruction. This book is tightly-made, full of violent narrative magic and indeliable historical detail. The end result feels heroic, and new."

- Ashley Warlick, author of The Arrangement and Seek the Living

Terese Brasen studied Old Norse, the language of the Vikings, as well as Scandinavian literature, during her undergraduate years. She earned her MFA from Pennsylvania's Cedar Crest College, through the Pan-European Program in Creative Writing. She holds Swiss and Canadian passports, is fluent in Danish and is currently completing a collection of short fiction.