Troll Mill

About Katherine Langrish

Katherine Langrish grew up in Yorkshire, England and has been writing stories for as long as she can remember. She graduated from London University in 1979 with a First in English, and worked in an assortment of odd jobs including waitressing, teaching riding, and six years as Information Officer for Lloyd's Register of Ships in London. This last was an entertaining post dealing with an assortment of the ship-crazed public, including a man who claimed he could see shipwrecks with his ‘magic eye.’

Married with two daughters, Katherine moved to France with her family and became involved in a storytelling group providing weekly stories, drama and activities for children. And the storytelling continued when the family relocated again, this time to the small town of Corning in New York State.

On returning to England in 1999, Katherine began writing Troll Fell, a folklore-based fantasy novel for children set in the Viking age. It was sold at auction to HarperCollins for a six-figure sum and was followed by the sequels, Troll Mill and Troll Blood. The books follow the fortunes of young Peer Ulfsson and his friend Hilde in a richly-imagined Scandinavian world. As Katherine says, ‘I am allergic to heroes with swords, rings and other magical gadgets, so my characters have to work out their problems by their own efforts.’ The final book in the series takes the pair across the Atlantic in a Viking ship to the coasts of ‘Vinland’ (Nova Scotia). As part of her research she spent time learning to sail a replica Viking ship on Roskilde fjord, Denmark. Katherine approaches her fantasies as ‘history with the beliefs put back in’ – incorporating the beliefs of people of the past who took for granted the existence of trolls, ghosts, and other spirits. Her books have been translated into nine languages.