Dean Yurke's Blog

Hi GoodReaders,
if you're also a GoodListner too, (see what I did there : ) ) then good news, as the audiobook is now available on Audible, and has just received a 5 star review from the ACX approved website, AudioBookReviewer.com!

Lassa The Viking the Dragon’s Inferno

by Dean Yurke

Narrated by: Simon Marks

Epic Battles with Comedic Relief!

A young man and his brother are conscripted to fight in the Viking Army during the 11th century. Lassa is a simple teenager who has zero skills and is not a fighter. To avoid certain death during his first battle facing huge, tough warriors, Lassa hides in the back letting everyone else do the fighting. That is until he trips and accidentally kills the Saxon leader. Then he becomes a “hero” that everyone expects brave and miraculous leading. Lassa discovers the true adversary of the Vikings is the Dragon King and Lassa finds he is the one destined to lead the Viking army into battle.

The author, Dean Yurke, is a masterful story crafter of the short and humorous comedy of errors that keeps the listener on the edge of their chair just waiting for the next hilarious misstep by our unlikely hero. Yurke provides strong dialog, rich and vivid details, and strong flawless character development. The plot twists are comedic moments are noteworthy and executed impeccably. I thoroughly enjoyed the growth of Lassa and his comedic moments thoroughly.

The narrator, Simon Marks gives a gifted performance providing a unique and expertly timed deliverance. His talented performance gave life to Lassa and other characters, making them real. The unique voices for each character made them more realistic and believable. The injection of emotion was well-time also and appropriate to the character and situation. I hope to hear more from Simon Marks.

There were no issues with the production or quality of the audiobook.

Read the Review on AudioBookReviewer.com

If you're an active reviewer on Audible or Amazon and would like a review copy in exchange for an honest review then please message me here on Goodreads as I have a few review codes left.

If you'd rather just sit back and listen to the rip-roaring adventure then here's the link to Lassa the Viking on Audible! Link to Lassa the Viking on Audible

Thank you!

Dean

LASSA THE VIKING AND THE DRAGON’S INFERNO

A fast-paced, funny, and adventurous read.

LASSA THE VIKING AND THE DRAGON’S INFERNO
BY DEAN YURKE ‧ RELEASE DATE: OCT. 22, 2020

Vikings, Saxons, and dragons meet in this middle-grade fantasy novel sprinkled with humor and magic.

All 13-year-old Lassa Erikson wants is to be a quiet, studious apprentice alchemist in Denmark, but he and his brother, Sven, are conscripted into the Viking army and find themselves heading to fight the infamous Saxon Lord Mordred. The kids know they have no place in the company of the fiercest warriors they’ve ever seen, and they try to hide during their first battle. But after Lassa accidentally kills Mordred, he’s hailed as a hero, deemed a fierce “berserker,” and given a prominent position in a Viking group that aims to rescue King Magnus, who’s imprisoned in England. Meanwhile, in English King Harold’s castle, 14-year-old Princess Ann would rather be a warrior than be married off for political purposes. Her opportunity arises when hooded figures, apparently Norsemen, invade the castle and capture her father and sister. Ann escapes to get Mordred’s help—not knowing he’s already dead—and ends up joining Lassa’s group of warriors to fight a common enemy. Both kings have been captured by a mysterious half-man, half-dragon cult leader who has witches and druids under his control. This short, fun, humorous novel feels like a cross between Horrible Histories and Game of Thrones, and it deftly combines elements of a comedy of errors and a fantasy epic. It also features a plethora of lovable secondary characters, but Ann and Lassa are the real draws, the former as a tough, loyal fighter, and the latter as a coward-turned–brave hero who uses his scientific knowledge to face problems. The comedic tone is quite goofy at some points, even in the face of very real danger, and the story is almost entirely ahistorical, but readers likely won’t be bothered by either of these factors.

A fast-paced, funny, and adventurous read.

Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S DRAGONS & MYTHICAL CREATURES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

Hi, Dean here,
since my book won't be published until Oct 22, sample chapters aren't available yet on Goodreads. However, you can read the first 5 by clicking on my website LassaTheViking.com or you can read the first chapter below, but I'm having to brute force it so please excuse the formatting!

Thanks!

Lassa the Viking and the Dragon's Inferno
Action Adventure Comedy | Upper MG | 48000 words

Chapter 1

UTHBERT


LASSA ERIKSON was absolutely terrified, completely and utterly terrified because he was standing in the middle of a Danish battlefield surrounded by an ocean of the fiercest, nastiest, toughest, meanest, ugliest Viking warriors the world had ever seen… and technically, for the past seven and a half hours he was supposed to be one of them too.

Lassa’s palms were sweating, his heart was pounding and his thirteen year old legs were trembling so much that he had to lean on his shield to stop himself from falling over. Any minute now he knew he’d be dead. Stabbed - slashed - squashed - burned - boiled - or lanced through the heart by an enemy Saxon spear, dead. Lassa didn’t stand a chance.

He looked nothing like the real Vikings. He wasn’t taller than a bear, didn’t have scars, muscles or missing limbs, and he still had all of his own teeth. Lassa wasn’t a warrior he was a worrier.

And worrying was exactly what Lassa was doing. He kept thinking, hoping, praying that any minute now he’d wake up to another boring day, in his boring little room above the boring and uneventfully safe hay loft on the family farmstead. He scrunched his eyes then opened them, but the army was still there.

Leading the Viking army was the hulking great wall of flesh - General Gorn Skarsgood. He was the six foot four embodiment of the Viking name; broken nose, forked beard, iron plated armor and a four foot long broadsword that he wielded as if it were a toothpick. The Vikings stiffened with pride as Gorn strode past them inspecting their armor. Particular favorites he punched in the arm, hard enough to fell a small tree. Singled out, these massive men swooned with honor.

Pacing besides Gorn was his second in command, the equally menacing Leif Dremhammar. His long black hair matched his long black cape, and made him look like a giant raven. “We're facing eight hundred enemy Saxons, two brigades of archers and a battalion of chariots. They say that unless we agree to halt our unprovoked attacks against England and sign a peace treaty they will destroy the port of Ribe.”

Lassa strained to see through the wall of brutes blocking his view. He prayed that by some miracle the battle might be called off and he could forget this nightmare and go home.

“Unprovoked, they attacked us!” said Gorn. “You know where they can shove their peace treaty. Please tell me that my prize Blood Eagle is with them?”

“Yar. The Saxon Lord Mordred is awaiting your response.”

Gorn gripped the hilt of his sword. Sunlight gleamed over the blade. The word Uthbert was fused into the metal. Gorn smirked, “Uthbert is ready to answer.” But his dark smile was cut short as he noticed something out of place with one of his soldiers. He stomped towards a heavily scarred, gap-toothed log of a man who trembled as Gorn stopped before him.

Gorn stared at the man’s sword which was rusty and trailing along the ground. Instantly the soldier realized his mistake and was about to apologize when - WALLOP! Gorn knocked him out with one swift blow.

Lassa could feel the wind from Gorn’s fist where he stood three rows back.

“Never, never, NEVER let me see a weapon in such a state of disgrace.” Gorn turned to the crowd. “Your sword is your life. Your life is your sword. It holds back the tide of death and you will worship its power as the enemy’s knees buckle before its fury. Its will is God’s will. Its blood is our blood and our blood is VIKING!!!” The ranks erupted with a deafening roar of approval.

However, not everyone was cheering. Lassa couldn’t. His stomach was in his mouth. His limbs were going numb, and he had the sense that he wasn’t in his own body. Everything was turning white and little stars appeared in the corners of his eyes. If he had control of his limbs he would’ve run a thousand miles. Lassa was thankful he still had control of his bowels.

“Lassa, Lassa? Psst! Oi Lassa?”

Lassa didn’t turn, his mind was as numb as his freezing cold toes. Deep down though, Lassa knew that the voice was coming from his overweight, lazy and yet inexplicably likable twin brother Sven Erikson, who was crouched next to a nearby battle carriage. Twin yes, but definitely not identical. Lassa found it hard to believe that they were in any way related. Lassa liked ‘normal’ teenage things, like studying ancient texts on chemical analysis, books on mathematical theory and structural engineering. He even gave up his weekends to clean the local apothecary for free, so he could learn from his mentor, Choy Yang a master Chinese alchemist.

Sven however had a very different view of Lassa’s passion for science - he considered it ‘a bunch of old rubbish’ and would often warn Lassa that ‘nothing good could come from mixing with a sorcerous foreigner...’

Sven was ignorant, small minded and stupid all wrapped into one lazy lump but the thing that Lassa did envy about Sven was that Sven was the most optimistic and laid back person on the planet. Like the human equivalent of a well-fed dog lying by the fireplace with its tail smoldering in the heat.

“Lassa, Lassa? Hey cloth ears, look.”

Lassa was miles away. Sven’s distant voice buzzed around his head like a Baltic mosquito. Lassa knew whatever information Sven was going to impart wasn't going to save him from meeting his maker as soon as the battle started.

But just to shut him up, Lassa answered, “W-what?”

“Lassa, you have got to see this,” said Sven, groaning as he stood up from inspecting the battle carriage. “Look, double rimmed axle covers. Imagine how many bales of hay that could pull on the farm. Nice.”

“What?” Lassa’s pitch rose an octave.

“You should do one of your little drawing scribbles of it.”

“A diagram? You want me to draw a diagram? Were you even listening to a word Gorn said? He names his sword, what sort of person names their sword?” said Lassa.

“It’s an Uthbert, they’re top of the line, worth more than ten farms!”

“We’re gonna die here you know.”

Sven gave Lassa a sly look. “Not us, I have a plan.”

“This one doesn’t involve a ‘free meal’ at the feasting hall again does it?”

“Oh c’mon, I said I was sorry, will you drop it.”

“What’s the worst that could happen, you said? And now this!”

“Do you want to hear my plan or are you going to prattle on like an old woman?”

Lassa did begrudgingly recognize that it wasn’t all Sven’s fault that they had been forced to join the Viking army – just ninety-nine percent his fault – because the Viking army’s recruiters had a very crafty way of increasing their ranks. Recruiters would bake the ‘King’s Coin’ into cakes and leave them casually lying around the local feasting halls. They would then wait until a greedy oaf ‘accidentally’ took a huge bite out of one and nearly broke a tooth on the coin. Having touched the coin the recruiter would then claim that the victim had willingly accepted the king’s pay and was now enlisted into the Viking army.

Lassa had tried to argue the validity of this with the recruiter but found quickly that it was unwise to point out a legal technicality to someone four times your body weight, especially when their boot was pressing your face into the floor and they were charging you with impeding an imperial officer. The penalty was death or immediate enlistment in King Magnus’s army, which also resulted in death, just a little more drawn out.

Lassa glowered at Sven.

Sven tried his most earnest smile. “It’s a good plan Lassa, trust me.”

Trust Sven!

Never again vowed Lassa. Never again. He’d rather take his chances with the Vikings.

Lassa trained his ears back on Gorn’s rousing speech.

“...These attacks will end here, when this hand prepares the Blood Eagle for each and every one!” Gorn was in full force.

Lassa stared at Sven wide-eyed. “What’s a Blood Eagle?”

“You sure you want to know? It’s a real honor apparently, saved only for the most worthy of victims. When you surrender they slice open your chest, tear out your lungs and lay them either side of your rib cage. Looks like an eagle, and you’re still alive -”

“Sven stop.”

“Takes days to die. It’s the ravens pecking at your flesh that eventually ends your torment. Nasty stuff, I met a fella up at the grub hut who said he survived -”

“Shut up. Please, I’m going to be sick.” Lassa breathed slowly, but it didn’t help. Sven had to steady him. His brother was always there when he needed him, and he was always there when he didn’t.

Lassa looked over at Sven’s hopeful face. However stupid his plan, it had to be better than having your lungs cut out.

“Alright. Tell me your plan.”

Sven took a breath, then announced, “Stay at the back of the fighting.”

“WHAT!?” cried Lassa in a shrill voice. Sven had topped his worst idea ever.

Hearing Lassa’s shout, a slab of a warrior with a bushy red beard, turned round and explained to Lassa, “The General said the sea will overflow with Saxon blood.”

“Cool, wicked. Thanks.” Lassa grimaced then turned back to Sven. Did his brother really just suggest the worst suggestion ever, in the history of bad suggestions? “Stay at the back! That’s your brilliant plan?!”

“Everyone always rushes to the front, let them do the fighting. And try to stand behind someone bigger than you, they always go for the heifers.” Sven folded his arms with pride.

Lassa stood there incredulous, “You really are serious aren’t you?”

“What do you suggest, fighting?”

“Or creating a diversion and running away.” Lassa opened his coat, inside were pockets stuffed with smoke bombs and homemade Chinese fireworks.

“Oh no, you’re not still hanging round with Choy Yang?” said Sven. “You’ll blow yourself up!”

“No, it’s perfectly safe,” said Lassa.

“You stay away from those foreigners. It’s sorcery, that’s what it is.”

“It’s alchemy. There’s no such thing as magic!”

Gorn concluded his bloodthirsty speech, “For King Magnus and for victory!”

The Vikings pounded their swords on their shields creating a roar of oak and iron. So as not to stand out, Lassa followed suit but accidentally hit his thumb with the hilt of his weapon and dropped the shield.

Sven raised his eyebrows. “If you’d spent more time building up your muscles in the field and less time staring at them, umm, foldy things, you’d be fine.”

“Books. They’re called books,” said Lassa.

“They’ll never catch on. Learn by doing Lassa, not by reading.” Sven twirled his spear.

Viking horns sounded all around them. The army welled in anticipation of glorious war. This was it, the end of Lassa Erikson.

As Lassa looked out at the multitude of snarling, brutal faces who moments from now would certainly kill him, he considered that maybe he’d been too quick to dismiss the ravings of his imbecile brother and that perhaps, just possibly, Sven’s plan wasn’t the worst idea ever.

How wrong he was.


End of Chapter 1

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Please add the book to your want to read list and follow me on Goodreads too, thank you!