The Sea Queen (2018)
Written by: Linnea Hartsuyker
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 446 (Hardcover)
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review.
Why I chose it: I connected with the author on twitter and was offered a free copy.
The premise:
Six years after The Half-Drowned King, Ragnvald Eysteinsson is now king of Sogn, but fighting battles for King Harald keeps him away from home, as he confronts treachery and navigates a political landscape that grows more dangerous the higher he rises.
Ragnvald’s sister Svanhild has found the freedom and adventure she craves at the side of the rebel explorer Solvi Hunthiofsson, though not without a cost. She longs for a home where her quiet son can grow strong, and a place where she can put down roots, even as Solvi’s ambition draws him back to Norway’s battles again and keeps her divided from her brother.
As a growing rebellion unites King Harald’s enemies, Ragnvald suspects that some Norse nobles are not loyal to Harald’s dream of a unified Norway. He sets a plan in motion to defeat all of his enemies, and bring his sister back to his side, while Svanhild finds herself with no easy decisions, and no choices that will leave her truly free. Their actions will hold irrevocable repercussions for the fates of those they love and for Norway itself.
The Sea Queen returns to the fjords and halls of Viking-Age Scandinavia, a world of violence and prophecy, where honor is challenged by shifting alliances, and vengeance is always a threat to peace.
This review is spoiler free for this book but does assume familiarity with the previous novel.
Discussion: Though I liked the first book, reading it at times was a bit of a chore. There’s a lot of dense material to sift through in these novels, which just means that the immersive world building is superb. With this second installment in the planned trilogy, I was able to rely more on my knowledge of the world. So the second book was not only even better than the first, it was a quicker read too. Could be a good thing, could be a bad thing, because this book just came out today, and we’re going to have to wait for the next.
This book picks up six years after the events of the first novel, as King Harald seeks to unite all of Norway under one rule, Svanhild raises her son with her brother’s enemy, Solvi, and Rangvald, trusted adviser to the king, just wants to go home and farm his land on his own.
The first book’s strength was definitely the world building and the characters, and the same is true here. The amount of research put into these books is immense, which is evident in the prose, but doesn’t make for a dry or boring reading experience. The details are skillfully woven into the narrative.
My poor girl Svanhild has a lot going on in this installment. No spoilers, but she ends the book in a very different spot than she starts it, and she goes through a lot of really sad stuff to get there. She got me misty eyed a few times, she’s just so well written. Her strength and resilience in facing down her husband, the man who would be king of Norway, and even her own brother were all really good moments for me. She’s strong, she’s opinionated, she’s willing to do what she needs to do to get where she wants to be.
I’m a little less enthralled with Rangvald, though it has nothing to do with Hartsuyker’s skill in building him as a character and everything to do with personal taste. He’s almost an anti-hero: very much not out for his own glory, chasing the vision foretold to him by Harald’s mother in the first book, that Harald would unite Norway, and that Rangvald would support him and sacrifice all for him. Rangvald’s sister pegs him very accurately late in the book in a conversation with Oddi, who finds himself at odds with Rangvald.
“You think that is why he does it? Because he will not share his glory?” Svanhild put her hands on her hips.
“Why else?”
“Because he fears if he does not always risk everything, dare the most, then our stepfather will be right. He will be a worthless coward. He will be less than his father Eystein, a boaster, with more god tales than good deeds. You are his dearest friend, surely you know this.” (Page 427)
And indeed, despite asking several times to be allowed to go back to his family’s land and farm it, Rangvald ends up doing the king’s bidding more often than not, though he doesn’t like to have his deeds sung about by the skalds, the Norse version of a minstrel.
The stakes are high, the unification of Norway hangs in the balance, and though we’re pretty assured it sticks (modern day Norway being somewhat of a dead giveaway), I’ve got no idea how the next book is going to go, or who’s going to arise victorious at the end. And I honestly cannot wait to find out.
In conclusion: Despite not being sure AT ALL that I was going to like these, I actually LOVE them, and I can’t wait for the next one.
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