DNF couldn't get into

I'll review the series when I finish it. Onto book 2, [bc:Winter's Fire|23128332|Winter's Fire (The Rise of Sigurd, #2)|Giles Kristian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460666376s/23128332.jpg|50297150] [b:Winter's Fire|23128332|Winter's Fire (The Rise of Sigurd, #2)|Giles Kristian|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460666376s/23128332.jpg|50297150].

This is quite a simple Viking-style story. I like the swiftness of the story, and some facts of Scandinavian culture of that time. On the other hand, the amount of these interesting facts was quite low, much less educative than many other Viking books. And the story felt very unchallenging. Things just happen around the main character. Somehow he keeps getting to the right places and meeting the right people. And all these right people appear to be the best fighters around, and for some reason they want to join the main character, an inexperienced and unknown youth. That kept feeling fake.

I remember reading, quite a few years back, all 3 of [a:Giles Kristian|2776821|Giles Kristian|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1519755456p2/2776821.jpg] 'Raven' series of Viking novels.

I remember thinking that, while they were OK, that I wasn't overly enamoured of his style of writing, or of the books in general.

As a result, I never picked up his 'Burning Land' (English Civil War period) series, nor did I ever really go looking for any other wroks by the same author.

However, when I saw this novel on sale for something like 99p on Amazon, I thought I might as well pick it up and see if, as tastes change over years, that I felt any different about this series (at the time, completely unaware that this was prequel of sorts) than about the Raven series.

And, I have to say, I do feel differently than before.

Unfortunately, however, I found this particular novel to be a bit of a chore to wade my way through.

It's not that there's not the outline of a good plot here - tales of revenge often act as the impetus for such books - just that I found this be rather slow moving, and could never really immerse myself in the period or bring myself to care all that much about the characters, their motivations, or about any of the incidents that occur to them.

I'm sorry to say, but I think for my Viking fix I'll be sticking with [a:Bernard Cornwell|12542|Bernard Cornwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1504578807p2/12542.jpg]'s 'Saxon Stories' (that start with [b:The Last Kingdom|68527|The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Stories, #1)|Bernard Cornwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1407107780s/68527.jpg|881821] in future.

Sorry Mr Kristian!

✨"Destiny is All"✨ is all I could hear as I read this. IYKYK.

The way this started gave me chills. Those 1st couple of chapters were so atmospheric I couldn't sleep until the whole betrayal scene cut. I think Giles Kristian is one of my favorite authors because bestie knows how to manipulate my mental imagery. My room became snowy, cold Norway in 785, and my friend's family was about to go through shit. I had a coat and boots and everything, and I was laughing and then crying with Sigurd.

I didn't expect to feel much in the duration of this book, but the balance of fleeing, handling emotions, and carrying out revenge was kind of perfect. The amount of vulnerability that Sigurd had to be brave enough to show especially when he ‘sacrificed’ himself to meet Odin! It wasn't a light book because heavy things happened. But it was a light book in tone, which is exactly my taste.

The characters were my favorite part.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and the style it was written in. It has the style of a saga which is appropriate and despite being fairly gory in places it also has a great deal of humour - albeit the sort of humour that mght appeal mainly to a man. It's of the 'thunderous farts' variety but is entirely appropriate to the subject matter and the sometimes larger than life characters brought to life.

Can't wait to read the next installment.

8/10