BOOK REVIEW | NORTHERN WRATH BY THILDE KOLD HOLDT

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Good Evening all my bookish friends!

Today I will be reviewing Northern Wrath and I am, as always, super thankful I got to read this courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A few facts about this book:

  • Title: Northern Wrath
  • Author: Thilde Kold Holdt 
  • Series: The Hanged God Trilogy (Book One)
  • Published by Solaris
  • Pages: 616

Synopsis:

Add It To Your Goodreads!

Following in the steps of Neil Gaiman & Joanne Harris, the author expertly weaves Norse myths and compelling characters into this fierce, magical epic fantasy.

A dead man, walking between the worlds, foresees the end of the gods.

A survivor searching for a weapon releases a demon from fiery Muspelheim.

A village is slaughtered by Christians, and revenge must be taken.

The bonds between the gods and Midgard are weakening. It is up to Hilda, Ragnar, their tribesmen Einer and Finn, the chief’s wife Siv and Tyra, her adopted daughter, to fight to save the old ways from dying out, and to save their gods in the process.

ORDER HERE: Audible | Paperback | Kindle

Review:

Here are a few things you can expect from this book:

  • A Norse inspired viking fantasy;
  • A rich and detailed world filled with known and more unknown lore and myths;
  • Chaotic and bloody battle scenes;
  • A captivating plot.

On to the full review…

Northern Wrath is a norse inspired Viking fantasy and book one of The Hanged God Trilogy. I think I stand with a lot of people when I say Norse Mythology is an incredibly interesting one, it has so so much involved within its lore and the cultures that belonged to it are also incredibly interesting. Thilde managed to incorporate quite a lot of this in her writing too which is testament to the research and knowledge of this area, which meant she excelled in her world building. 

This book has gods, monsters, heroes and so much more and it is all woven well into the world and its plot. I really liked the idea that the diminishing belief in the gods was closing the gateways of sorts to the other realms, and it made the fight for ones belief about more than just their gods but being able to be with their families in the afterlife.

As a debut writer Thilde has done a great job of bringing many of the scenes in Northern Wrath to life from the exploration of the other worlds and the races the fill them to the battle sequences. She manages to really encapsulate the chaos that is battle.

Now let me explain why, for me, this book ended as a three star book on Goodreads, while this book excelled in it world building and its plot was captivating enough for me to finish the book, world-building is my lowest ranked attribute of a book. Characters are my jam, followed by plot and then world-building.

So unfortunately, I’m in a wee bit of a minority here as while I liked this book I did not enjoy this as much as I thought I would. My two main issues for this book go hand in hand with each other in my opinion. In short I felt like this book lacked the character depth I prefer as a reader and it was much too long. 

Northern Wrath has quite a cast of characters, more than I expected to be honest, and at times some felt like they were inserted randomly and generally didn’t need to be a POV at all. 

I honestly feel like with more editing both of my issues could be helped massively if not completely resolved. Now, I am no editor nor have I written my own book but I think, from my experience as a reader, that had this book have had less character POVs it could have both spent more time with other POV’s to achieve a greater character depth and cut down the page count by removing the filler. 

Let me also remind you these are my personal opinions based on my personal preferences, a book is to many readers completely different things. So I urge you to check out the other reviews for this book as many reviewers I respect and trust have LOVED this book and given it full marks!

THE RANKS: 

BUY THE HARDBACK | BUY THE PAPERBACK | BUY THE EBOOK | LIBRARY RENTAL OR SALE PURCHASE

I would still pick this book up in its Kindle form and quite possibly read book two, because like I said it was a good book in parts and I am hopeful, as I am not the only person to share these critiques, that they could be remedied in book two.

AGAIN Thank you for reading AND SEE YOU SOON!

SUNDAYS SEVEN | 7 NONFICTION BOOKS I WANT TO READ & THINGS I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT…

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Hello Everyone and welcome back to The Book in Hand for another Sundays Seven post!

If you have been with me from the start of my blogging journey you will know I only really read fantasy and a small amount of sci-fi. Well, I realised when I was walking the other day how much I now listen to audiobooks. I listen when I am walking the dog, when I am playing around on Inkscape, cleaning and cooking. I even listen when I am at work sometimes so I can get few quite a few.

I want to challenge myself a little bit to broaden my reading genres but also use the gift that audiobooks have become for a little more.

I am one of those people that digests so much more information through listening to people than reading, all the way through university I recorded myself reading my textbooks so I could listen to them and do other stuff while doing some of my pre-class reading and revising, because revising for exams sucks.

Since finishing university, and being so thankful to finally not be in education I stopped learning much of anything, and despite having done five years at university doing my undergraduate and my master, I miss it. So, I am going to task myself with some nonfiction books about things I want to learn more about! They will likely be about history but it may change depending on how this goes, if I discover some cool fun things but…

LET US LOOK AT THE BOOKS THEN, EHH….

Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia

TOPICS:

Chinese History | Politics | War | Asian Culture

The dramatic real life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China’s 1949 Communist revolution–a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. 


Shanghai has historically been China’s jewel, its richest, most modern and westernized city. The bustling metropolis was home to sophisticated intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class when Mao’s proletarian revolution emerged victorious from the long civil war. Terrified of the horrors the Communists would wreak upon their lives, citizens of Shanghai who could afford to fled in every direction. Seventy years later, members of the last generation to fully recall this massive exodus have revealed their stories to Chinese American journalist Helen Zia, who interviewed hundreds of exiles about their journey through one of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century. From these moving accounts, Zia weaves together the stories of four young Shanghai residents who wrestled with the decision to abandon everything for an uncertain life as refugees in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States.

Benny, who as a teenager became the unwilling heir to his father’s dark wartime legacy, must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. The resolute Annuo, forced to flee her home with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the U.S. in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. And Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America. The lives of these men and women are marvelously portrayed, revealing the dignity and triumph of personal survival. 

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga

TOPICS:

Race | Politics | British History

In Black and British, award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare’s Othello.

It reveals that behind the South Sea Bubble was Britain’s global slave-trading empire and that much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. It shows that Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. Black British history can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation.

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

TOPICS:

Genghis Khan | Mongol History | War | Asian Culture

Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed.

There was a far longer synopsis for this book but this one was still better, I’m pretty sure the other was jus an except from the book!

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 

TOPICS:

Science | Sociology | Anthropology | Evolution | Biology

100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. 

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? 

In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? 

Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power … and our future. 

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

1776 by DAVID MCCULLOUGH 

TOPICS:

Military History | War | Politics | Declaration of Independence | American Revolution

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence – when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, an his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books – Nathaniel Green, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of Winter.

But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost – Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough’s 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history. 

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

England’s Other Countrymen: Blackness in Tudor Society by Onyeka Nubia

TOPICS:

Tudor History | England | Race | Politics

The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV shows, and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet our image of the Tudor era remains overwhelmingly white. This ground-breaking and provocative new book seeks to redress the balance: revealing not only how black presence in Tudor England was far greater than has previously been recognized, but that Tudor conceptions of race were far more complex than we have been led to believe.   

Drawing on original research, Onyeka Nubia shows that Tudors from many walks of life regularly interacted with people of African descent, both at home and abroad, revealing a genuine pragmatism towards race and acceptance of difference. Nubia also rejects the influence of the “Curse of Ham” myth on Tudor thinking, and persuasively argues that many of the ideas associated with modern racism are therefore relatively recent developments.  England’s Other Countrymen is a bravura and eloquent forgotten history of diversity and cultural exchange, and casts a new light on our own attitudes towards race.

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMAZONS: WOMEN WARRIORS IN MYTH AND HISTORY by Lyn Webster Wilde

TOPICS:

Women | Mythology | Amazons

‘Golden-shielded, silver-sworded, man-loving, male-child slaughtering Amazons,’ is how the fifth-century Greek historian Hellanicus described the Amazons, and they have fascinated humanity ever since. Did they really exist? For centuries, scholars consigned them to the world of myth, but Lyn Webster Wilde journeyed into the homeland of the Amazons and uncovered astonishing evidence of their historic reality.
North of the Black Sea she found archaeological excavations of graves of Iron Age women buried with arrows, swords and armour. In the hidden world of the Hittites, near the Amazons’ ancient capital of Thermiscyra in Anatolia, she unearthed traces of powerful priestesses, women-only religious cults, and an armed, bisexual goddess – all possible sources for the ferocious women.
Combining scholarly penetration with a sense of adventure, Webster Wilde has produced a coherent and absorbing book that challenges preconceived notions, still disturbingly widespread, of what men and women can do.

ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS?

Well, we shall see how I fare with these first!

Book Review: Limbo by Thiago d’Evecque

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My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

A few facts about Limbo:

  • Title: Limbo
  • Author: Thiago d’Evecque
  • Series:  Standalone
  • Publisher: Published by Thiago d’Evecque
  • Pages: 162

Read Limbo on my Kindle FREE with Kindle Unlimited. So, not free because you pay for KU, but it still feels like a free book.

Synopsis:

The fate of the world hinges on a forsaken spirit, a mad god in a sword, and 12 mythological beings.

The Limbo is where all souls — human or otherwise — go to after dying. Some don’t realize where they are. Death is a hard habit to get used to. Gods and mythological figures also dwell in the plane, borne from humanity’s beliefs.

A forsaken spirit is awakened and ordered to dispatch 12 souls back to Earth to prevent the apocalypse. Many don’t take kindly to the return. Accompanied by an imprisoned mad god, the spirit must compel them.

Each of the 12 unlocks a piece of the forsaken spirit’s true identity. Memories unfold and past wounds bleed again.

The journey will reveal buried truths about gods, angels, humanity, and the forsaken spirit itself.

If you like epic fights, diverse mythology reinterpreted, and surprising plot twists, Limbo is for you.

(Goodreads)

Review:

When I woke up, I knew something was wrong. For I only opened my eyes when the world spiraled into chaos.

Limbo comes across as an incredibly intellectual tale, it touches on many aspects of life such as religion but also humanity. Our existence and the way many live, it pulls everything that makes these topics so provocative and inserts them into Limbo through our main characters thoughts and understandings. 

“The past is enticing, and we need it to make sense of our lives. We can only understand who we are when we look back to who were. But it’s a trap. Watch it and leave it, there’s nothing you can change there.”

Limbo is a strange tale to be told, interesting and quite creative with its mixture of many religions, legends and folklore tales. It was interesting to read one story which is made up of many historical tales coming from Asia, Europe and all across the world and done so skilfully as not to feel disorientating.

I found myself really intrigued as to who our main character will enlist next, excited to see what legendary figure was to be chosen and what myths or religion it came from. 

Limbo was a lovely quick read, its chapters were short and snappy and its sentence structure refreshingly sharp. 

Thiago has you intrigued at the start, and does brilliantly to create an interesting world where anything can be conjured. The world Thiago creates, or the Limbo he creates, is written in amazing detail and comes to life for each new person encountered. 

The surroundings took shape, bringing the refreshing scent of wet dirt and leaves. Huge trees obstructed the sky. Spears of light pierced through the swaying branches and canopies.

With any short story there is a degree of difficulty to develop a character to the extent the readers of longer books expect but Thiago bridges this really well. The pace is definitely slower but it feels appropriate with the themes this story utilises, being more thought provoking and meaningful. 

I especially enjoyed reading Thiago’s notes at then end, throughout the book I highlighted each historical person/culture/legend that intrigued me with the intention to research these later but I didn’t need to do this completely blind because Thiago gives some detail as to them and its brilliant.

Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

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MY RATING:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

A few facts about The Scorpio Races:

  • Title: The Scorpio Races
  • Author: Maggie Stiefvater
  • Series: Standalone
  • Publisher: Scholastic Press 
  • Pages: 409

I read The Scorpio Races on my Kindle.

Synopsis:

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

(Goodreads)

Review:

This book got my attention for a number of reasons, one being animal companions because, well animal companions are awesome and the other the actual premise of the book. The idea of monstrous water horses competing in a deadly race was something new to me, having not read anything similar to it at the point of reading. The lore in which this book is based off wasn’t anything I was familiar with and so I was drawn in.

This is a decent read and I enjoyed it but it also didn’t exceed anything beyond average falling flat in a few areas.

I loved Sean and Puck and their natural and realistic relationship. I was a little skeptical at first with it being YA, but it felt both mature and realistic in its development. It was not instant love or littered with meaningless exchanges and it actually felt somehow powerful, a little profound. I don’t really know how to explain it but I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The plot of this book, as previously said, drew me in enough to pick this book up but unfortunately it was weak in several areas and fell flat for me. I would have liked a more emphasis on a few areas and I didn’t understand certain character motivations and felt like they were really underdeveloped. For example, I didn’t understand the drama that unfolded with Gabe (Puck’s brother). It seemed surface level at best and I couldn’t quite understand the sudden decision to leave and then the avoidance of his siblings. For him then to be all ‘I can’t do it anymore’ when we have seen nothing of his struggles. That whole side of the story just felt off, as if it was purely there as a reason for Puck to enter the race. 

I would have quite liked to see more from the encounters with the emerging water horses and their origins instead of riders simply using previous mounts. Especially when there was actual emphasis on this time, a time when the island changes becoming more deadly as these creatures begin stirring from their depths and coming ashore.

In terms of world building Stiefvater created a heartfelt and weighty world, you felt the desolation of this odd little island in which the story is set and the community that filled it was well developed. I appreciated the split within the island for too, of those longing to leave and those wanting to stay having a deep love with the island and its values. 

Overall, this was an enjoyable read and I liked Puck and Sean and the emotional depth of this book but it was still weak in several areas.