Beneath A Thousand Skies

Summary:

Drowning is only the beginning…

Edda Gretasdottir is a raider, a fell-handed shield-maiden, feared along every coast. Hers is a life woven in battle scars.

But she never wanted to walk the warrior’s path. All she wanted was freedom, to earn enough gold to buy her family their own remote farm, and to escape their oppressive chieftain. Now, she has enough plunder so that she can finally hang up her shield and live in peace.

That peace is stolen from Edda, however, when raiders burn her home, destroy all that she loves, and toss her, wounded and bleeding, into the ravenous ocean.

But the fates are cruel and this is not the end for Edda: she rises from the bloody surf as a Windborn, a cursed warrior whose supernatural gifts are a poor exchange for everything she has lost.

Fuelled by rage and armed with strange new powers Edda will hunt for whoever sent the raiders, for whoever is responsible for taking everything from her. She will show them the sharp edge of her axe… or die trying.

Windborn is a dark, character-driven Norse fantasy packed with emotion, deadly foes, and vicious battles.

Windborn was a book that I wanted to pick up from the moment I first set eyes on the cover (sometimes it really is that simple, and I mean just look at that cover – it’s stunning) and the blurb only reinforced that, and it didn’t disappoint.

Edda was without a doubt the main selling point of this book for me. She makes for an incredibly compelling and well-written protagonist from the moment we encounter her. In part, this is because we experience everything through her eyes from the first-person point of view, and therefore we share very vividly what she experiences, what she thinks and more importantly what she feels. Her highs and lows throughout the book, are our highs and lows, her grief beats in our chest and her anger and desire for vengeance echoes in our blood. First-person is often a challenge for me, I’ve always leaned towards third person, but when it does work it is because of the strength and individuality of the character voice, and that is very true here. Edda’s voice is memorable and resonates, and it is a credit to Bradshaw’s skill at characterisation that she raised that feeling in me and moved me from start to finish.

    The wide-ranging cast of secondary characters are well-realised as well, and while Edda’s experience and voice is our primary focus I found myself particularly enjoying the time spent with the various Windborn as the story progresses, as well as her friendship with Fjola. Amongst the supernatural elements, and the harshness of the world and the situations that Edda finds herself in, it was the little character details and their interactions that added a grounding, humanity to the story – for example, some of the conversation between Edda and her husband in the first chapter had me smiling, and immediately feeling the depth and warmth of their marriage.

    The magic system treads an interesting line between being a rules-based system, and the mysterious nature of magic that is fitting for a world heavy with Norse Mythology and Bradshaw does an excellent job of maintaining that balance while creating something intriguing and unique. I always appreciate when there is a price to be paid for accessing such powers – although it is a steep price here, and also worlds, where those with powers may be the most ‘powerful’ but, are limited or restricted or feared in some way, it makes for a more complicated world and it was a delight to see how it played out in this book. The powers themselves were fantastic to read about, especially when they came into play during fight scenes, and those were some of my favourite scenes (plus it was a fun game, to try and work out what abilities the different Windborn had when we first encountered them).

     As much as I was immediately taken with Edda and the world that Bradshaw was building, I must admit that it did take me a little while to get into this one, although I think that is in part due to it being first-person and needing to find my feet with Edda’s voice. That said, once I had found my feet this was a book that swept me along, the writing was vivid with a terrific blend of emotion and action, and prose that breathed life into every single aspect of it. There were lots of twists and turns, many of which I did not see coming, and this is very much a book that keeps both Edda and the reader on their toes without ever losing sight of the course it’s following and carrying you with it.

    Windborn is a fantastic debut, and an excellent addition to any Norse Fantasy lovers shelf and I would recommend it to anyone who loves Norse fantasy and character driven fantasy, and I will be keeping a weather eye out for future books by this author.