The Tollkeeper

Klaus Rise is a creature out of legend hiding in plain sight.

Through the darkest hours of the night, he maintains a low profile as a tollkeeper along a lonely stretch of Florida causeway. Then a drunken, loud-mouthed motorist causes Klaus to lose his stony cool, spurring him to narrate two intertwined stories.

One is an epic coming-of-age tale set in medieval Norway and Iceland. The other is a modern noir mystery in which he encounters a woman with a mythic history of her own. Her uncanny aunts--who bear a striking resemblance to the Norns of Norse lore--learn his secrets and enlist his help to battle a mysterious enemy and an eminent domain case of immense importance.

The surly Klaus wants no part of it. Yet, he is soon entangled in forces he can barely comprehend and a fate that has guided his implausible life from the day he was born. At the center of all the book's scams, schemes, seductions and savagery is a pristine Florida spring that must be preserved at all costs.

Everything depends on the tollkeeper’s success…and always has.

Often hilarious, sometimes heartrending and always an adventure, The Tollkeeper is a unique and beautifully written literary fantasy that blends elements of J. R. R. Tolkien, Neil Gaiman, Carl Hiaasen and the sagas of yore. **