Sky in the Deep

Reviewed October 2018, updating to remove broken links.

First of all. This cover. AND VIKING WARRIOR WOMEN. Just take all my money right now, why don't you. Of course, there's also a huge danger in being completely taken by a cover and brief blurb...sometimes the copywriter is a better writer than the actual author. So I was sort of kind of worried that might have happened, but I am very happy to report that it most certainly did not disappoint!

Oh, and btw – I was reading my copy of this book in the bath, and my puppy knocked it out of my hand and INTO THE WATER. There was much shrieking and flailing but the book survived and so did the puppy. The book is now all ripple-y and much thicker than it should be, but still readable. eyeroll

FIRST OF ALL:
Adrienne Young, can we pleeeeeeeease have a sequel where Eelyn and Fiske are a little older?? PLEASE??? Like maybe a NA type? Maybe where the enemy tribe resurges? I know there is a companion novel coming but it sounds like it might be more about someone else and I just need more of Eelyn. Please and thank you. Ok, now I will attempt to write something more coherent...there ARE some SMALL potential spoilers. You have been warned.

Characters:
Obviously, Eelyn. Our fierce Viking shieldmaiden. When the book first started, I was slightly put off by just how ANGRY she seemed to be, as if she had no other emotion (other than feeling pain, I definitely got the sense that she was in pain, but her reaction to pain was MORE ANGER). Did she have reason? Yes, probably more than most of us reading. Life in this time was hard, even if women were treated more equally in this Viking world. Eelyn kicks ass, but beneath her strong soldier exterior she still has a heart, she loves her family and her village more than life itself...which is why it hurts her so deeply when she discovers what her brother, Iri, has done. Eelyn is also NOT one of these heroine who walks and talks like a badass but never quite manages to DO anything badass...nope. She is downright brutal at one point in the book, and I found myself quite literally gaping at the page.

I'd envied Iri my whole life for his open heart, and now mine had been pried open too.

Plot

The words were small but they were true. ‘I'm thinking that I wish you'd died that day.'

Worldbuilding

I could still see a young Eelyn standing on the beach turned into the wind, a sword in one hand and an axe in the other. I hadn't lost her. I hadn't buried her. I'd only let her change into something new.

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