Book Review: The Valkyrie’s Daughter by Tiana Warner

Hey all, Sam here.

Who wants a bonus review post? Because I have one for you today. David and I will have our regularly scheduled WIP Wednesday post up later this afternoon, but I have a book review to post as well…because I was supposed to have it up last weekend, but I got distracted by other books. You’ll hear all about it later in the WIP Wednesday Reading Update section, but…yeah, it threw the review schedule into chaos for a little bit. I’ve had to do some rearranging to fit everything in in a timely manner.

Today’s review is for a book that actually has the sequel coming out at the end of the month, so you know I felt the need to get it read and reviewed in a timely manner. I have been approved for the sequel through NetGalley, so I will be reading that very soon. Plus…if you’ve been keeping tabs on my two projects for Camp NaNoWriMo, one of them has a Valkyrie-inspired main character…so I’ve been in a bit of a Norse Mythology mood anyway.

All right, let’s get started.

From the time she was born, Sigrid has only ever been ordinary. Being paired at birth with a plain horse―instead of the powerful winged mare of a valkyrie―meant there would be no warrior path for her. No riding the skies, no glory among the nine worlds. Just the simple, unremarkable life of a stable hand.

Everything changes when a terrible enemy ambushes Vanaheim and Sigrid sees a vision of herself atop a mythical stallion, leading the valkyries into a harrowing battle. Finally, she can grab her future with her own two hands and become the hero of her own story…if she dares.

But her destiny is tied up with Mariam, a fallen valkyrie who’s allied herself with the very enemy Sigrid is trying to stop.

Now Sigrid has left ordinary behind as she begins a journey with the beautiful―if treacherous―valkyrie, each step bringing her closer to answers…and to awakened feelings for Mariam.

Only, the life Sigrid has escaped may have been paradise compared to the one she’s racing toward. Because her destination is the realm of the dead: the gates of Hel.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

Once I finally sat down and focused on this book, I read it fairly quickly. But I admit that I had picked it up a couple different times and only read a chapter or two before getting distracted by other books and other stuff going on. Now, let me be very clear in saying that this doesn’t mean that the book wasn’t good enough to hook me in the beginning, because it was. I found Sigrid to be an interesting character from the beginning, and I enjoyed what was presented in the first couple of chapters.

I just want to be honest about saying that I was still trying to break out of my reading slump and some books just took me a few tries to really get into.

Once I was in the right reading mood for this story, I flew through it, almost as if I was racing through the story on Sleipnir. Oftentimes when we think about mythological stories, they seem to be placed in more of a historical or literary perspective, and not so much more of modern writing styles. This book definitely leans on the YA side with writing. The characters don’t speak with some old-time honor-and-code restricted way of speech. That definitely helps with the reading speed.

But, since it also fully takes place in the Norse Worlds, so places like Vanaheim, Helheim, etc, and we don’t really get to see places like Midgard (AKA Earth), the way of speaking does also mess with the feel of the story a bit.

But I liked Sigrid, and Mariam was interesting, and getting to go on this epic quest with them was certainly intriguing. Their relationship dynamic was pretty fun to follow as well, especially with them also traveling around with Fisk.

The journey did seem to fly by rather quickly, and there was a lot happening, but at the same time, some of it did feel a bit easy to handle and sort of rushed. And there were some aspects of the story, particularly with certain “twists” and “revelations” that were fairly easy to predict early on.

Overall I did enjoy reading this, but I was also reading it at the same time as some richer and more involved fantasy books, which left this one feeling as if it was lacking. I still enjoyed reading it, but I wanted a bit more depth and a bit more detail…but that’s okay. The book was still good, and I did enjoy it, which is why I’ve given it 4 stars, but I can still see places where I would prefer more…and who knows, perhaps book two will give me a little more depth and detail and complications and intrigue. We’ll know soon enough.

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All right, that is all from me for now, but I’ll be back with David later for our regular Wednesday post. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.