The Last Song of the Swan

What if Beowulf is the written account of a story that stretches back to the dawn of time? Helen Bowie asks this question. Hrunting, daughter of Unferth, the mage of Heorot, lives it. Both women are fighting for the rights of social outsiders against powerful men, heroes with the power to change society, perhaps for the better, perhaps not. The stories of two women who lived 25,000 years apart asks the reader to consider who determines who is human and who must be destroyed.


OMG!!!! Once I saw how the two stories paralleled each other, I went into a completely different reading mode. More and more similar situations kept occurring. I even went back to find out what I had missed earlier. The author might very well have been listening to Ravel’s Bolero to weave the stories then build up to the crescendo.

Reading this book was an experience; not just two stories in two separate time periods, but rather a lesson in human nature. I only hope that we learn from it…