BEWARE: MILD-TEMPERED VIKINGS WITH ITALIAN LAST NAMES AND SCOTTISH ACCENTS AHEAD.
Book Rating: PG
Language: G
Violence: PG (A man is whipped, the Vikings invade Scotland, whatever. Not much blood)
Sex: PG (Light on the romance, but there are a lot of allusions to different men bedding different women. There are references to rape as well as a sentence in the very beginning which says something along the lines of “It takes a man only a few minutes to pleasure himself….”
Drug/Alcohol Use/Abuse: G
I didn’t hate this book, but I definitely didn’t love it either. I actually contemplated giving up on it three chapters in. (More on that later). Ultimately, this is a story that follows the Viking Stefan through four years of his life (ages 14-18) after he is abandoned in Scotland during a raid gone wrong. To save himself, he masquerades as a distant Scottish cousin of two kindly Scottish ladies, Jirvel and her daughter Kannak.
There were some really great things about this book. I felt that Stefan was a strong narrator and the plot kept me interested and reading. The writing flowed well and was easy to understand and I give Stefan all the props for the compelling plot. The writing was very simple, juvenile at times, but I felt like this book was written overall for younger teens/pre-teens so I can forgive it. I felt like the story as a whole was well-written, but there were some definite issues.
To start:
1. Stefan is a Scandinavian Viking with the last name of Rossetti. ITALIAN. ROSETTI IS ITALIAN. But that’s cool. Stefan is only the Viking leader’s son with no connections to Italy…
2. My favorite Viking adventurers talk with Scottish accents using “dinna” for “didn’t” and calling each other lads (even the full grown Viking warriors) as well as saying “ye” and “aye” way too much for comfort. I have trouble anyway reading books in full-on accent mode, but then you add to that Vikings who are speaking like they’ve never stepped foot in Scandinavia and I was done. NOTE: This is when I was seriously thinking about stopping and throwing this book into my “no, thank you” pile. I’ll admit, it does get easier the more you read if you don’t dwell on the fact that Stefan is in fact a Viking and NOT a Scotsman. But whatever, I finished it.
3. I know this con is actually a good thing, but it’s just so unrealistic. You have Donar, Stefan’s Viking King father who says that he made a promise to his mother never to “force” a woman. Now, this is great, a Viking who doesn’t rape and pillage. But for that time, I just didn’t believe it. I would have much rather have Donar be a true Viking warrior and hate him for what he did, than to think of the entire Viking Squad as a fairytale.
4. Stefan’s mother was captured by the Vikings and made Donar’s wife and she had absolutely no qualms about it. HER ONLY DEMAND WAS THAT THEY TAKE HER SISTER TOO OR SHE WOULDN’T GO WILLINGLY. Homegirl just threw her sister under the bus, pointed out where she was hiding, and had her captured by the fearsome Vikings as well. I just…Stefan claims it was to save his aunt from an awful marriage. But, to quote Joseph Conrad, would being married to this Scotsman really be worse than being surrounded by “lusty, red-eyed devils” whose only real love was raping and pillaging western Europe?
5. The plot was good, but it wasn’t GOOD. Sure, it kept me reading, it kept me interested, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere substantial. From what I read, I guess this is a prequel to some of Talbott’s other series? But coming from a reader with no connection to these other books, the plot seemed to go nowhere. I wanted to know what Stefan’s part in the story was. He was a good narrator, but it just seemed that after he was left by his people, he kind of flopped. He had no drive or purpose. I’m kind of shocked that I was kept interested throughout the entire story because usually those kinds of book have trouble keeping the attention. So Marti Talbott is definitely doing something right.
6. Stefan’s a Viking which means he was most likely a Pagan, but he seems to be very in tune with God and Catholicism. He crosses himself a lot, prays a lot…but who am I to say he’s not a Christian Viking? It happened to Ragnar in History Channel’s Vikings.
So there are my big issues with the story that made me contemplate giving it only two stars. There were enough eye-roll moments to really make me question my sanity. BUT. It was fast-paced, I liked Stefan overall (though he was kind of flawless), and I liked the premise. I’m a sucker for some medieval drama, so you had me at the word Viking, Ms. Talbott. Hats off to you for creating a main character that had little motivation but kept me rooting for him nonetheless. Stefan was kind, noble, strong, and valiant. Everything I could hope for in a hero.
“It also occurred to him (Stefan) that the old man had the answer to loneliness. There was someone he could talk to in his oppressive world of silence. At first he felt too shy to talk to God and said all the things he was taught to say by the priests. But he soon found those words had little meaning when what he really wanted to do was talk to him man-to-God.”
*Sign up to receive notifications when I post more reviews!
adjö,
lauren
