The Forest of Dean, 1011 AD. Everything Abbe loved has been taken. The Viking raid came without warning. Her village burned. Her family scattered or slaughtered. She survived, bloodied and violated and utterly alone, and now stands on a hilltop facing an impossible future. The man who destroyed her village is returning. The warrior who took her body swears he will take more. All that remains to Abbe is a choice: feed the hatred consuming her, or find something stronger in the ruins of her world. Set against the verdant forests and ancient rivers of 10th-century Britain, Merre is a story of survival and memory, of love and murder, of a woman learning to live when everything worth living for is gone. It is a novel about forgiveness. Not of villains, but of the unbearable humanity of those who wound us. And about whether love, once shattered, can ever be whole. For eight years, this manuscript lay hidden. A story of loss and grace written for the love of the telling, by a woman who understood both intimately. It is published now in her memory, and for readers who believe that the deepest strength is not in revenge, but in refusing to let loss have the last word.