Set in a world where the Gods frequently join in marital relations and give blood to their chosen children, Freya chafes at her life. Bound in an unwanted marriage to a son of the Ocean God Njord, she spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of joining Snorri’s, the region’s jarl, war band and proving herself in battle. And putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back. (Of course he’s horrible; this is a Romantasy, and he’s not the MMC.)
Her dreams abruptly come true when her husband betrays her to said jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn, who has a drop of Tyr’s blood. (Who the author is said to have “BVD” Alpha male energy, which if you don’t know what that is, and I didn’t until I looked it up, just don’t. To quote Murder by Death, “Don’t ask, it’s disgusting.” But now you know who Freya’s ain true has to be.) To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: she too possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate. (Which is why her parents forbade her from telling anyone. Darn shame no one thought to mention that to her brother Geir, also known as “one of the countless people in this book I wanted to die a slow and lingering death”.)
Being egotistical enough to believe he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, Snorri binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength (spoiler: she has none), Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic (she does neither), all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. (Or just the bad luck common to Romantasy protagonists so as there is a plot beyond lustful stares, innuendo-laden dialogue, and eventually turgid sex scenes.) The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. (Two guesses how well she accomplishes that.) If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect. (Which are a lot of people, very few of who deserve it; but what would Freya be if you took her martyr complex away from her? Just someone who screeches and shouts at herself in her head, and someone who has dark whispers, dark laughs, dark smiles, and an inability to be the least bit tolerable to read.)
I loathed each and every minute it took to read this book. I hated Freya and Bjorn from the minute they were introduced, and that feeling did not go away over the ensuing four hundred-plus pages. These are not people in their mid-twenties to thirties in a warrior society, these are hormonal teenagers doing a High School production version of Scandinavia with the budget and production values of Dark Shadows. Snorri was just insufferable, and of course Vraggi (Freya’s husband) was disgusting; if he wasn’t a horrible human being (and a worse lover) why ever would she even look at Bjorn? Greir, their mother Kelda, Greir’s lady love Ingrid; three people that Freya sells herself into near-slavery to Snorri to protect, and three people who did not deserve it. I personally would have just slaughtered the three of them, but that’s me. All in all, there were maybe three characters I could reasonably tolerate in the entire book, and by the end only one of them was still alive. The two fortunate ones (fortunate because they can no longer be dragged through this crap) Freya barely knew, and yet they cause such fury, rage, sadness, and angst you’d think she was going for an Oscar.
I will say anger is a big emotion for Freya, when she isn’t sad, long-suffering, lustful, drunk, deliriously happy, tired, or resigned, emotions that she will cycle through within a span of five pages. If you like Sophie in An Offer From A Gentleman, you’ll love Freya; they are sisters in arms in the “loudly discussing how long-suffering martyrs they are, while having the rage and violence of a steroid-addicted gym rat. Notice I said nothing about any emotion close to confident in her knowledge, because that never happens. Freya has to be one of the stupidest characters I’ve read in a while. She knows that multiple people would rather see her dead than allow anyone to control her fate (and yes, this book when it isn’t about the insta-lust Freya and Bjorn have is about condescending men and the woman who lets them and life happen to her), and yet her reaction to staying safe is basically Arthur’s sister.
It took me five days to read the final 120 pages because I kept finding far better things to do, and I had to force myself to finish. What got me through was the thought that once I was done I was done, and I would never have to read it ever again. I filled eight 3×5 index cards with all the things that bothered me, and I probably could have filled another dozen or so with crappy dialogue. Some examples:
Tastes of mead. Every inhale I scented pine and snow and wind over the fjord.
(Because every Romantasy has to have the male lead smelling like a Bath & Body Works; Someone forbid Bjorn actually smell like what he probably would, which is alcohol, smelly leather, and not being able to bath in at least a week.)
I burned so hot. Yet it was like comparing the light of the stars to the burning glow of the sun as he sank a finger into me, then two, making my core, my body climbing higher toward release. Yet still, I wanted.
(Seriously, who writes this?)
Or I could go on about “slick thighs”, her wanting to “taste his taut tattooed skin”, and how he’s “built like a god”, and “waiting for him to claim her, but instead he consumes her”, and Bjorn coming out of the water looks like Balder was released from Helheim and has strode up just for her. Or that she shouldn’t like Bjorn threatening violence on people, but seeing as it’s violence against people who have threatened her, she finds it sexy. (I threw up in my mouth reading this book. A lot.)
Nevermind Bjorn and his paraphrasing of Princess Bride in that infamous scene of “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in the world…”, or proving what Robin Williams said about the amount of blood a man has in his body and its inability to be in two places at once.
There is only one good bit of dialogue in the entire book, and it’s this:
Is that part of your strategy, then? To distract the enemy with your rippling muscles so you might kill them while they gape at your splendor?”“It is madness how well it works,” he agreed. “You’d think that when I run toward them, screaming battle cries and vows for blood, it would be the burning axe they commented on, but no. It’s always, ‘Look at that Bjorn’s ripping muscles. If I survive this battle, I vow to drink less mead so that my belly looks like his.
Or to put it more succinctly, me at the end of the book after Freya wanting to sacrifice herself for the thirteenth time and she’s still here:
The only redeeming quality of this book is that it ends. There is more chemistry between two pieces of whole wheat toast than the main characters.
At one point, the main character wanted to sacrifice herself and I was rooting for her. You can only imagine my disappointment when she survived.
