meet the author

This is the story of the last, desperate attempt by the Vikings to tame what is now Canada's Newfoundland under their formidable Chieftain Freydis Eiriksdottir, one of the most notoriously fearsome shieldmaidens to ever have lived. And of the three natives of those ancient forests, Shanawdithit, Madawaak and Demasduit, who led their people to rise against an overwhelming force. This is the tale of the Spirits of the Ice Forest. 

Mary was a circus elephant. The Star of the West. She could dance, play the trumpet and pleased crowds wherever she went. 

In 1916, after a disastrous Wild West show in Erwin Tennessee, acts against Mary the five-ton Indian elephant would go down in history as one of the most disturbing bizarre cases of animal cruelty the world has ever seen. 

But, Mary had a life before the circus. She was free once. Part of a wild herd. 

During the British Raj, she was captured, trained and sent to America to become a spectacle. Along the way, she loved, she lost, she made friends and formed bonds. She suffered heartache and experienced ecstasy. She was a living being. 

This is her story.