Hello everyone!
Tonight's choice makes a whole lot of sense if you remember that I'm a big fan of Outlander and Vikings, which is basically what this is a mash-up of.
The fact remains that there's been a BIG resurgence of time travel books and books that feature characters just randomly popping through time since Diana Gabaldon's works have been adapted by Starz (and this is ending with the eighth season, so, SOBS GALORE).
Which isn't a bad thing, honestly, because there's sooo many places you could time travel to!
Now, if only we could find authors that wrote about someone dropping into Ancient Greece or the like.
Anyway, without further ado, let's get right into Sarah Beth's book, alright?
The ravens are gathering and the battle draws near in The Land the Gods Forgot.
I've never read anything by this author before and have nothing to really compare it to (besides Outlander) so there won't be any links down at the bottom for the time being.
Instead, let's just hop right into it!
Bria is a Norwegian lass whose parents seem to be divorced, because she's been living with her mother but at the beginning of the book she moves in with her father after dropping out of school. Her dad tells her to go hike out all her miserable feelings, so she does just that, goes to the fjord, and finds a weird stone with runes on it.
DUN DUN DUN!
Falling through time - literally, as she falls through the sky to land at the feet of the Viking king during a big battle, she's whisked off to the city and his home, while rumour spreads immediately that the Chosen One has finally arrived.
Oh yeah, it's one of those books, and why?
Alarik, the King who she landed in front of, explains it to her later: his people and the beasts (literal beasts, with horns and fangs and everything else) who've been fighting for dominion since forever, got cursed by the gods because they angered them with their incessant war, and they sent them here to Volheimer, which is basically the land in between life and death.
And it's always been prophesied that a Chosen One would end their curse and send them back.
Bria is this Chosen One according to the people, not that SHE feels that way, and not that Alarik believes it himself, although he does make sure she's guarded at all times if nothing else. She adapts easily enough, although he draws the line at having her train with weapons (horseback riding is a go, however) until she's almost assaulted when allied forces arrive to the city to see what and who they're guarding now.
This then changes things and Alarik agrees that she should be trained, after which we just get a simple montage of how Bria's adjusting to everything with all the things thrown her way, ending up at the healing house where she learns to help people, and in the meantime, the King goes for a little trip to the woods, visiting the Seer.
There's always one of THOSE, too.
She tells him that he's asking the wrong questions, but as attacks from their enemy increase, Alarik knows that it's all because they believe Bria to be the Chosen One as well.
It doesn't help that he's slowly falling for the girl, and that after one kiss between them she ghosts him, unwilling to talk or even be in the same room together - this after they went out of the city to figure out why the heck the beasts are building a wall, and gotten attacked by one that was somehow smuggled into their home town proper, which ended up shredding through Bria's thigh.
So with tensions running THAT high, and with everyone telling him to give the girl space, Alarik's not in the mood, and eventually he puts the kiboosh on all that by confronting her, which leads them to a heart-to-heart, and Bria explains that she's terrified of getting involved with him, because what happens when the curse is finally broken? She doesn't want her heart to break in the process, too.
But there's no way to deny their attraction and she ends up in his bed that night, right before sneaking off afterwards to traipse to the woods herself in search of the Seer, who tells her that a choice is looming before her which will either end everything, or send them all down a path of darkness.
Of course this is also the part where she gets kidnapped and taken to the enemy, since she went off without a single guard, and the biggest bombshell gets dropped when Alarik's brother is revealed to be working with the enemy because ... well, because everything always came easy to the firstborn and he's never had to work for anything in his life.
It's not the strongest of arguments, I'll give you that, and he also wants to have Bria for himself, which SHE's having none of, and eventually while locked up in her tower at the fortress, she discovers her own brand of magic, which enables her to send a message to Alarik that she's fine, but something big's about to go down.
She uses those same secret passageways to escape after Alarik's brother launches a full-scale attack, and gets to the battlefield just in time for the big reveal, with the added caveat that she now knows - probably because the gods got tired of the stupid mortals and showed her - what exactly happened that cursed the lot.
A woman, and two men fighting for her, which is a tale as old as time, and she's somehow found herself in a pretty similar situation.
This is why it should be no surprise she puts herself bodily in front of Alarik to intercept his brother's sword, which at least shocks the younger one out of his stupor and, instead of continuing with the assault, he stabs himself, thus effectively ending the curse.
Bria wakes up at home and falls into a deep depression that no one and nothing can cure, until one day she spots a moving truck and sees her friends from Volheimer gathering and laughing.
She and Alarik reunite in the modern day, and how exactly this works basically doesn't matter because the ending is such a happy one!
Whew! This book does NOT let up once it gets going. It's sort of a race from start to finish in that there's a constant sense of urgency. Let's break it down a little bit.
MCs: Bria and Alarik are this book's Claire and Jamie, and their connection and romance DOES work - however , it feels very fast, like almost everything else.
SCs: are sometimes a lot more interesting than the MCs - but also everyone keeps smirking and pushing Alarik's buttons and generally being annoying so, I didn't actually like any of them all that much because I feel like the story was calling for more seriousness and less levity a lot of the time.
The villains: oh man you can see them coming a mile away purely because of annoyance levels. However, I want to know more about Valda - who exactly is she and how long has she been around?
The backstory: is about a woman of course, but we never actually learn about the curse that sent the two warring sides to Volheimer, which I think is a shame.
The magic: is confusing, I have to say it. It doesn't seem to follow any rule other than what Bria needs at the time, so I don't really feel like it's that big of a feature.
Overall: this was an easy read to get through in one sitting, and Bria and Alarik are likeable enough. I love the ending, and the twist as to who and what exactly breaks the curse, but I feel like we could have spent more time with how everyone's feeling rather than fast forwarding through time. It's a decent book to read and a follow-up could be fun to pursue, but I think that this Vikings-meets-Narnia fell a little flat for me.
xx
*image not mine
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