Staff Writer: James
Published Date: December 17, 2024
Number of pages: 592
Format: e-book
Genre: Romantasy
Tags: LGBTQ+ friendly, Female Protagonists
Cardigan rating: 3 out of 5
Thoughts:
I went into this book with both eyes open. I’m no stranger to massive fantasy tomes or to whole series of them. What I was unsure of was a writer primarily known for contemporary hockey romances putting a fantasy spin on historical mythology, especially one as obscure as Finnish. Ironically, it is the romance that failed this book because it couldn’t seem to figure out exactly who the romance was supposed to be about.
The book starts off promisingly with two friends, Siiri and Aina, dealing with the stories of disappearances of several local girls and the erosion of their pagan ways. It isn’t until Siiri witnesses Aina taken by a death god that the story truly starts. Siiri is determined to seek out a legendary shaman who is the only person to ever venture into the realm of the dead and return. The book then splits into alternating chapters between the two girls – Siiri’s journey to find the shaman and Aina’s captivity. Both girls are treated as the main protagonist and it really hampers the flow of the story because you never feel like you’re invested in either because the focus keeps shifting.
The names will drive you crazy, especially the witches of the dead because some of them are very similar and it’s easy to lose track of who is who, I don’t fault the author for this but doing something to make it clearer would have been helpful.
Aina’s initial romance that turns into one between the two girls is also odd, largely because the original romance strangely seemed more believable than the one we end the story with, but it also had the advantage of having several hundred pages more devoted to it. It’ll be generous and assume that the Siiri/Aina relationship will be better fleshed out in the concluding book.
Will I read the second (and final) book? Probably. The main plot has something to recommend and, while the relationships needed work, they were serviceable and all the extraneous clutter has been cleared away so that the book can finally focus on Siiri and Aina and their efforts to drive the Danish invaders from their home.