John Gwynne

Was a Viking reenactor before publishing, and the fight scenes carry the weight of somebody who has actually stood in a shield wall, however friendly.

The Faithful and the Fallen builds slowly across four books toward a genuinely earned catastrophe. The Shadow of the Gods moved to a Norse-inflected world where dead gods left their bones in the landscape and their blood in certain people. Gwynne writes short chapters, many viewpoints, and does not spare characters readers have grown attached to.