Lion's Blood

Amazon.comIn the year 1863, a primitive village is raided, the men killed, and the women and children captured. The survivors find themselves chained in the dark, filthy hold of a ship crossing the ocean to the New World, where they are sold into slavery. The powerful master of a vast Southern plantation purchases the 11-year-old Irish lad Aidan O'Dere. Yes, you read that right--in this alternate America, the South was colonized by black Africans, and the North by Vikings, who sell abducted Celts and Franks to the Southerners. Through his brilliant inversion of our history, author Steven Barnes examines the complex evils of slavery in a new light with Lion's Blood , an intelligent and exciting novel of freedom and bondage, battle and intrigue, sex and love, set in an America threatened by total war as Aztecs, Zulus, Moors, and whites clash.
A Hugo Award and Cable Ace Award nominee, Steven Barnes has written 15 novels and 15 teleplays. --Cynthia Ward Book DescriptionThe novel takes place in approximately 1850 AD, and involves two main families: one of Islamic African aristocrats, the other of Druidic Irish slaves. It is a combination of Gone with the Wind and Roots, seen through a dark glass. Two young men, one of each genetic line, must deal with their world and each other.