Making a deal with Odin, the most powerful of the Norse gods, is a bad idea. Sigrene, who is considered one of the lowest of the low in Asgard, the Norse city of the gods, knows any dealings with Odin could get her killed, but after her friend is murdered, she is desperate to get justice for the girl.

When Sigrene learns the killer will be coming for her next, she's pushed into action. What can she sacrifice to persuade the Norns, the three Fates, to teach her to spin magic to uncover the murderer's name? Between Odin, the Valkyrie warriors and the dragon who gnaws on the roots of the World Tree, Sigrene makes powerful enemies at every level of the Norse Nine Realms. And every choice she makes leads her into more perilous places. No one alive has ever returned from the deepest of the Hel Realms: how can Sigrene?

This unique, epic poem explores little-known Norse mythology and pays special attention to form, sound, and imagery. Sigrene's Bargain with Odin contemplates the age-old quandary of where our loyalties lie, and how to act with integrity to find peace in a troubled world.

Born in Toronto, Zoe Landale went fishing at the age of 18 off the coast of BC, which she has been doing every year since. Now a veteran of 6 seasons, she admits to becoming cross when well-intentioned people ask if it is her first time out. Commercial fishing is not the easiest job, Zoe agrees, but says that she and her husband Conde work well together as a team. Zoe enjoys living on a boat and having the feeling that wherever you spend the night, you are spending it at home. And fishing? Sometimes I get tired of it and wish that we could be home in the summer, and I miss my cat and my garden, but then I look out at the clean grey sea, feel the cool breeze on my face and feel the boat heave under my feet.

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"With the beauty and clarity of a fairy tale and the complexity of an ancient Norse legend, we share the tests a hero endures for love of a friend, and of a horse? This books shimmers in content, style and power."
—Kate Braid, author of Inward to the Bones, co-author of In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry

"In Zoë Landale's ambitious and remarkable epic poem, Sigrene's Bargain with Odin, the reader is immersed, immediately and completely in lyrical legend. Sigrene, half goddess, half mortal, accepts the path destiny commands as she sets out to exact vengeance on the one who killed her childhood friend, Krista, "sister-heart, beloved." Here be skyhorses and dragons, Fire-gods and Valkyries; here a new song animates the ancient legends."
—Rachel Rose, former poet Laureate of Vancouver, author of Notes on Arrival and Departure