Full disclosure: during my misspent youth, my friends and I actually had a plastic viking hat. I'm not quite sure why--perhaps it was a remnant from some long-forgotten Halloween party. But, for some reason, we called it the "fight for your right to party" hat. We'd bring it out at parties and pass it around while laughing our heads off at ourselves. Usually the person wearing it could just have been as easily wearing a lampshade...you get the picture. Hey, it was the 80's. It might have been a lot worse!

At any rate, my fondness for the fight for your right to party hat made me really sad that I couldn't put this sort of hat on the cover of Sandra Hill's VIKING IN LOVE, but, of course, that would be all wrong. A cover destined to be poked fun at on other blogs.

Hats (or, more accurately, helmets) aside, the idea of a Viking romance that has gotten everyone in the office all excited. I've had people from all sorts of departments (this means hardcover people) slink into my office and ask for a copy. "I love Vikings!" they tell me. "Well, you'll love this one!" I reply. "And you'll laugh your head off."

You really will. I had such a good time editing VIKING IN LOVE that I had a hard time concentrating on what I was supposed to be paying attention to--grammar, continuity, that sort of thing. I would disintigrate into gales of laughter and kind of forget what I was doing. Which, for me, is the sign of a truly good romance.