Linnea Hartsuyker can trace her family lineage back to the first king of Norway, and this inspired her to write her debut novel, The Half-Drowned King, the first book in her trilogy about the Vikings, which was published by HarperCollins in the United States and internationally in six other countries. The Half-Drowned King was an Indie Next and a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, and was named the best historical fiction book of 2017 by the American Library Association. Linnea grew up in the woods outside Ithaca, New York, studied engineering at Cornell University, and later received an MFA in creative writing from New York University.