"Menaced by Vikings and enemies at court, Queen Emma defends her children and her crown in a riveting medieval adventure...Readers first met Emma of Normandy in Patricia Bracewell's gripping debut novel, Shadow on the Crown. Unwillingly thrust into marriage to England's King Ethelred, Emma has given the king a son and heir, but theirs has never been a happy marriage. In The Price of Blood, Bracewell returns to 1006 when a beleaguered Ethelred, still haunted by his brother's ghost, governs with an iron fist and a royal policy that embraces murder. As tensions escalate and enmities solidify, Emma forges alliances to protect her young son from ambitious men--even from the man she loves. In the north there is treachery brewing, and when Viking armies ravage England, loyalties are shattered and no one is safe from the sword"--