Author: Adrienne Young
Published: 24th April 2018
My Rating: 4/5
Recommend: Yes
Synopsis:
Part Wonder Woman, part Vikings—and all heart.
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.
Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.
She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.
Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.
Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.
She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating.
Received a copy in exchange for a fair review thank you to Titan Books
I have never read a viking before and oh my oh my I loved this book so insanely much I am considering starting another series. I absolutely loved everything about this book.
I also love the love the names; Iri and Eelyn. These two are undeniably my two favourite characters out of the whole book. Not only did I love their sibling relationship which is to say its bittersweet, but I felt like I saw everything through their eyes.
Iri's betrayal cut deep, I can understand what happened to him and what the situation is like, however I still didn't like his relationship with Runa and I didn't fully agree with it either. I felt every emotion going through Eelyn; her sadness, happiness, pain everything, I couldn't help crying for her too when she first learned of Iri's betrayal, it cut deep through my bones.
The plot was what I loved most about the book, two enemies falling in love is a story that never gets old however it is told. I admired how Young also portrayed often in war times you fail to see the enemy as being human too like they can have their own life and family too.
If your looking for an edge of the seat, action taking kind of book, then book is definitely for you.
And now for the guest post....
WRITING ACTION SCENES
Writing action sequences is something I didn’t know I loved to do until I wrote Sky in the Deep. The first chapter of the book is pretty much all action and I was so swept away by it that I knew I had stumbled upon an arena of writing that I had never really understood or appreciated. Some of the most common feedback I get about the book is about the battle scenes and the truth is that describing action in a way that makes sense and also keep the reader from skimming ahead to dialogue is tough. Here are my four rules for writing those weapon-wielding scenes!
1. Keep Character First
For me, this is the most important aspect of creating these fast-paced sequences. It can be really easy to get so caught up in what is physically happening in the action that you forget you are telling a wider story. It doesn’t matter how well you’ve written that blow with the axe or how poetically you described blood rolling down muddy armor. If something doesn’t happen insidethe character, it’s all for nothing. My first rule of thumb when drafting a new book is that every chapter has to move the story forward somehow. Action is especially vulnerable to missing this key element because so much is happening around the main character, that it can be tricky to weave them together.
2. Force and Motion Matter
This is where visualizing every moment of an action scene plays a big role. I know some authors who get up out of their chair and act out the movements as they are writing them. For me, I more often see it in my head, playing out like a movie. The reason why visualization is important is because so often, written action scenes are missing the most basic component—force and motion. You have to think about weight and velocity and energy, not just weapons and wounds. A warrior can’t just hop out of a ditch and run for the enemy. They have to pull their weigh up the incline and then throw it forward before they can start running. Those little details really make a scene come together.
3. Track Those Weapons
This seems like a silly one, but it’s something that writers get wrong all the time! I even caught one of these mistakes in the final pass pages of Sky in the Deep, even though I was sure I’d rooted all of them out. It can be really hard to keep track of which weapon your character has in which hand and what happens to it from beginning to end. I’ve read more than a few books where the character drops their knife/sword/bow/axe and a few paragraphs later, they suddenly have it again without ever having picked it up.
4. Create a Mood
A battle is just like any other battle unless you give the reader something to distinguish it by. You can do this by playing with setting, weather, time of day, or even battle strategies. On paper, it all feels the same unless you give us a special detail or circumstance. Which would you rather read—a battle in the pouring rain on a cliff where warriors are falling to their deaths as the enemy pushes forward, or a battle in an open field on a sunny day?
Make sure you check out the rest of the stop on the tour, until next time!
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