In the Wake of My Ancestors
“…honest, heartwarming and beyond funny…”
— R. Lehrman, Author
“…charming, funny and insightful in A Walk in the Woods sort of way.”
— C. Friedman, Reader
“An exhilarating read.”
— J. DeFillipi, Author
“The unexpected blend of fiction and memoir, Viking and biking kept me turning pages.”
— E. Ellor, Author
“I’ve long loved a good road-trip tale (Travels with Charley, everything Bill Bryson), and Owens’ debut is a great addition to the genre.”
— S. Baird, Author
Riding The Big One – Now Available!
Two heroes—one ancient, one modern—cast off their mundane existences for respective adventures on the high seas and high ways. Whether by Viking longship or tandem bicycle, Riding the Big One is a humorous and poignant tale of discovery, ancestry and transformation.
Eyvind Haakonson is a twenty-year-old fisherman in ninth century Norway. On a bleak winter’s day he decides that Valhalla is better than dying of boredom and goes Viking, boarding the next ship headed for Britain. He brings his sword, his fearless wife Hild, and an unwanted ghost.
Ian Owens is a thirty-five year old software sales engineer born eleven centuries after Eyvind. Faced with the tedium and minutiae that claim so many in his profession, he makes a choice similar to his distant ancestor’s. Wielding a handheld computer rather than a sword, cycling across the USA instead of plundering Europe’s coastlines, he and Jane, his plucky wife-to-be, meet with modern versions of Eyvind and Hild’s Dark Age perils, and both men wonder if Riding The Big One can alter their inherited destinies.