Odin has shut the
doors between Midgard and the other realms. That means those beings from other
realms - the Jotun, the Ljosafr, the svartalf, the elementals, are all stranded
on Midgard with no way home. And they have been for some time. They’ve slowly
integrated themselves into humanity
And Brynn, with her
own Outlander heritage, is doing her best to do just that and have as little do
with the Outlanders as she can possibly manage; even if it means hiding from
the night and the darkness.
But a murder
investigation drags her out of that safe light and into the middle of Outlander
politics. In particular into the path of Trygg, Berserker servant of Odin who
isn’t a fan of the Allfather, security for a Jotun mob-boss. And he knows who
she is...
Norse mythology!
I am always here for
Norse mythology. Always. And this has so many fascinating ideas based on that
mythology - especially since it doesn’t focus exclusively on the gods. I’ve
read a fair few books based on Norse Mythology and it’s basically “Norse gods
try to stop Loki ruining everything”. Don’t get me wrong, I love a god
Norse-gods-trying-to-stop-Loki-AGAIN story, I really do - but to have a story
that actually looks at the elves and the Jotun and the Svartalf; all the
different races of the nine realms as things other than enemies to Odin et al
is interesting and different
So seeing Odin be
some distant force with his own agenda is new. Seeing the story from the views
of the Jotun with their own political divisions and conflicts, the Swartalf,
the Ljorsalf, all with their own abilities and agendas working on Earth, unable
to get home so handling things without Odin and Thor dishing out orders or Loki
just bringing randomness. It makes for a really fascinating book that I’m
really dying to learn more about
And this is well done
as well - because I am tempted, I am teased with knowledge and hints of so much
more but the author has been excellently balanced in how it was delivered.
There were no infodumps, there was a lot of knowledge conveyed
I do think that the
“berserkers” would have been better as Einherjar, but that’s just me
I also really like
the plot because it works as an investigation - there’s lots of threads of
different issues around Brynn and Trygg, not least of which because of the mob
boss Trygg works for and Brynn’s own suspicions. But also because it’s handled
very well in terms of frustration and scrabbling for leads and dead ends and
red herrings that really makes for a very real investigation. At least it would
if the investigation didn’t fall to the ROMANCE.
The issue is, as I
often find, the romance. Not because there is a romance, but because the
romance appears instantly and then sprints off in fast forward in a way that
really undermines a lot of the more powerful plot elements.
