This one got off to a strong start, delivering the story you were expecting and hoping for after reading the blurb, a well-written, detailed, Viking novel that was well balanced between fiction and research. Unfortunately, it didn’t manage to maintain that all the way through, and I can’t quite say why. It’s as though it lost something partway through, or maybe, its that the charm cast by the setting and the writing gave way to reveal that the plot and characters didn’t have the same depth.

This is really a book of two ratings, because the historical detail and world building (although I would have liked more) is at least one star above the plot and characters, but unfortunately, the failing of the last two really does bring it down and by the time I was two-thirds through it felt as though I was fighting to finish it, because I just wasn’t invested in it or in either of the main characters, let alone the secondary cast.

2.5 Stars rounded up to 3 Stars