Ann Lethbridge asked Michelle Styles:

What drew you to writing romances in the Viking era in the first place?

Michelle Styles The idea for writing a Viking romance came from my editors over a lunch. I had done several Romans by that point and they wanted to know if I would ever consider doing Vikings. I was surprised as I had just read an article that the Viking historical romance was v dead and no one was ever going to buy that period. HOWEVER my editors had crunched numbers and had found the few Vikings they had published had done well.
I am part Swedish and Norwegian and one of the first books I can clearly recall was a lavishly illustrated book of Scandinavian fairy tales. Some of the stories absolutely frightened me but one about a woman who was carried off on a horse to found Sweden intrigued me. I figured that I could write Vikings as long as I was free to write them my way.
My sister majored in history at the University of Oslo so she was an early resource in pointing the direction towards what I should write. She was always disappointed in the pillage and rape books as she felt there was much more to the Vikings and their culture.
Added into the mix was the fact that I had a planned trip to Iceland that summer and so was able to some substantive research (including falling off an Icelandic horse when it began to shift).

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