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.
Like one of the core
elements of Bryn’s character is how traumatised she is. She’s terrified of
being out after dark, she studies how to defend herself, she assesses every
where she visits for safe places, she has weapons everywhere. This underlying
terror, especially of Outlanders, defines her. Yet 10 minutes in Trygg’s company
and her fears vapourise and she feels “safe” around him. Really? This does so
much to
Not as extreme, but
we also have Trygg’s bizarrely rapid switch of loyalties to Bryn rather than
Malachi, a man he believes he owes so much to. Or how he goes from pretty much
loathing the berserkers as Odin’s followers to pretty much settling in with
them. Or the fact both of them feel like they’re betraying the other when
they’re suspicious
This isn’t just your
standard “zomg he is the hottest thing who ever breathed let me derail the
story for 10 minutes to talk about that”, insta-romance nuisance (though there
is more than enough of that); it actively undermines some core elements of the
characters. Throw in a lot of violent jealousy from Trygg (you barely know the
woman! You don’t get to fantasise about killing other guys she’s near). There’s
also an unpleasant subtheme where Brynn snarls at Trygg for being overly
controlling - doing things like guiding her with his hand or lots of
touch-based dominance games or sheltering her - and rather than run with it, we
turn it into something that BRYN’S wrong about. Because he makes her feel safe.
Rather than acknowledging she actually has a point about not wanting a man to
guide her round like a puppet.
I’m not saying the
romance itself is bad, if overly sex based and full of some very bad tropes,
it’s that the speed of it undermines a lot of the characters’ history and
development which in turn hurts the overall plot. I think, in some ways, going
for a slow burn romance to be followed in later books would create something
more real and give Brynn more chance to work through her fears - and more room
to explore the complicated feelings she has towards, say, her adoptive parents
and her best friend. We don’t have space for that, because we have The Romance
We do have some gay
men - or had. They’re murdered. All of them. Every last one. And most of them
start the book that we so we don’t exactly have gay male characters, we have
gay male corpses. Oh and when the grieving father of one of those murdered gay
men is an arsehole, our dear hero Trygg thinks it’s super awesome to taunt him
about having a dead gay son. Classy.
We do have one living
bartender, he appears, makes quips and announces he’s an awesome Gay Best Friend.
This is like the sum total of his existence.
Dezi, Bryn’s best
friend, is a decent character. She’s friendly, smart, capable, independent and,
unlike so many best friends, has a lovelife, career and activities beyond the
protagonist (though this rather collapses at the end) and Bryn seems genuinely
caring about her and is willing to risk and sacrifice for her. We also have
Bryn’s adoptive parents who are Asian and, for the time we see them, relatively
unproblematic (these Asian Norse elves have katanas because… it’s a rule). My
main issue with all three of these characters relates to the above - the
ROMANCE. Because Dezi and Brynn’s mother and father all have fascinating
histories, potential conflicts and complicated relationships with Brynn could all
have been so much more… but we have THE ROMANCE
There’s so much about
this book that is excellent which is why I am frustrated by the elements of it
that fall so badly short: the treatment of the gay male characters and the
general feeling that the whole plot line has been badly mugged by a rushed
romance narrative.
