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Heather writes character-driven novels that go beyond the vows, capturing the triumphs and heartaches unique to married couples. A graduate of Bob Jones University, she's been married to her sweet Yankee husband for over sixteen years. After ten years of homeschooling and six years of writing, she really doesn't have many hobbies. Born and raised in the West Virginia mountains, she believes that bittersweet, generational stories are in her blood.
Reviewed by Kristi Lindsey for Readers' Favorite
As a child, Gudrid saw her mother hanged to appease the bloodthirsty god Thor. Immediately thereafter she was taken to be trained as a volva, or sorceress/priestess. As an adult, Gudrid has rejected the religious teachings of her youth to become a follower of the One God, while using her healing skills to provide succor to her clan. A sweeping epic, God's Daughter, by Heather Day Gilbert, provides a human face to the Viking settlers who first colonized North America. As Gudrid follows her third husband to the new land, she must not only face the hardships of an unfamiliar territory, but wrestle with her own soul as well. Haunted by dreams of her brother-in-law, with whom she shares a bond deeper than that of love, Gudrid is left questioning her role as a wife, and as a Christian woman.
God's Daughter is one of those gripping novels that leaves the reader unable to face another book for a while after the conclusion, so that all the information may sink in. Heather Day Gilbert draws from her own family tree to create three-dimensional characters facing problems that are as relevant today as they were centuries ago. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Christianity was central to the plot without becoming overwhelming or preachy. Instead, the picture is painted of a convert who is learning the new rules of a religion as they are created during the early days of the church. Gudrid is a protagonist that any woman can identify with and relate to. A "working" mother, so to speak, trying to balance her duties of being the chieftain's wife with raising a child in a hostile environment, surrounded by unpredictable natives. At one point Gudrid lovingly observes a favorite pair of boots with a fondness that any fashionista can relate to. Despite lighthearted details like this, God's Daughter is not a frivolous or blithe novel, but a richly detailed one, a tale meant to be savored and revisited time and time again.
