This is the second bit of Norse fantasy I've read this year, and whilst the previous one was very YA tilted, this is a little broader and mythology based. It is a good old-fashioned stab at retelling and rettconning aspects of Norse Mythology, and in particular to try and take the pretty one-dimensional role of the Valkyries and consider what that might actually be like. Mythology does take well to deep dives like this, and the aspects of ferrying bodies from the battlefield to Valhalla is the stuff of throwaway lines to soldiers to enhance morale and perhaps paper over futile actions that will lead to death. To its credit The Valkyrie has a punt at this, before exiling Brynhild on Earth and mixing her up with Sigrud and Gudrun, dragons and war.

This is, of course, a feminist retelling of these myths and centres both Gudrun and Brynhild. You need to accept the level of magic and mythology that the story comes with, Heartfield explains when its important but otherwise we sit in a blended Viking setting where most people aren't touched by the gods, but a few sadly have destinies. And the various myths and sagas tell these stories differently, not to mention once you get involved in the Germanic retellings - so any attempts to undermine, or at least temper the Sigurd/Siegfried myth is generally welcome.

The question is, with all the underpinings and the dodging around existing story beats, does The Valkyrie work? Yes, to a large degree, often because Heartfield comes in with Brynhild and stays with her exile and alien thoughts until she is to a degree assimilated into human life (she never stops missing being able to fly though which rings very true). Then we get to Sigurd, and bounce back and forth until the end which leaves Migard again and flings us through various afterlifes. There is a good managing of scale and tone, and even when it start to become a battle for the souls of a nation it never forgets the needs and desires of its central characters.

Something quite important in this era of retold myths. Sometimes the reader may be completely unaware of the source material. The story we need to remember always has to work on its own and not simply rely on a reader’s own knowledge. I am so pleased though in the more than capable hands of Kate Heartfield with their new novel The Valkyrie to be sucked into a story that mixes myths, history and delivers a captivating story.

Brynhild crashes to earth having been cast out of Valhalla by Odin; who objected to her defiance over who should stay alive after a battle. The Valkyries are Odin’s shield maidens sent to aid warriors to Valhalla and keep certain people alive. But now after three hundred years Brynhild is mortal but still a skilled warrior. She soon finds herself companioned with young Sigurd with a point to prove.

Elsewhere on the remote dying edges of the Roman Empire is the territory of Burgandy which has attracted the attention of the Huns led by Attila. To bring about a peace it has been agreed that Gudrun, sister to King Gunnar will marry him but Attila has other plans in the form of Fafnir a huge beast that can read minds and spew poisonous gases that kill armies. Soon Brynhild and Sigurd are brought into battle and Empires, Gods and the spirits of the dead will battle for the future of the world while Brynhild and Gudrun bond and realise they deeply love each other.

So I raise my hand and must confess this was not a myth I’m that familiar with. I know Odin; have heard of Valkyries but otherwise this is a story I’m coming cold to and so it’s a testament to Heartfield how engrossed I became with a tale of great subtle character work and also a story that morphs into an unexpected direction heading from what seems standard fantasy fare to something much more numinous.

We have as a structure Brynhild and Gudrun swapping their tales of how they met and what happened next (for reasons that remain unclear until the very end). Heartfield then has within that format a take that starts with Bryhhild’s literal fall from grace and soon is battling fearsome beasts but that is only the first third of the book. This story has a lot more to tell us.

What unfolds is an unexpected set of dominoes where Heartfield mixes the Norse Gods with the political tensions of the fracturing Holy Roman Empire. I have not checked to see if this was the source material but it makes for a story that crosses between epic and historical fantasy and our two leading characters align with both. Brynhild a fierce warrior and former servant of the Gods seamlessly fits with the monsters, fierce battles and use of magic. But Gudrun I found the interesting human character as she is a woman navigating political intrigues in a world that tends to still think only men can rule. While she too has magic she is also thinking about consequences and coming up with plans to pick Kings and most of all protect her people. Heartfield gives each a nuanced voice that fits their personality and also we get the growing realisation that these two women who end up married to warriors and Kings actually love each other more. In this period marriage is for alliances and image so actual loving relationships for both characters is something they face into for the first time. My only gripe is they rarely have time together after finally admitting their feelings.

The story has an impressive middle act where magic takes a back seat to the politics of Burgundy. After a monster is slain there is still aftermath and multiple parties grasping for power which leads to the arranged marriages and Brynhild being betrayed by them all. It’s a very intimate set of scenes focused on characters and being lying or honest to one another.

But it’s the final acts and the last third of the book that for me where standout. It’s where all the careful plotting allows the books to soar and we get not only battles with Huns and Roman Empires but armies of the dead; mysterious spirits and then a trip to the underworld. Finally we find why Odin is so keen on choosing who goes to Valhalla. This is a story that feels at this point mythic and a trip to meet Hel and a character trying to outwit Attila the Hun all feel perfectly balanced. It’s a great reading experience.

For me The Valkyrie was a great telling of a story I had no idea where it was going and I was very glad to explore this period and not again have the usual Norse myths retold. Heartfield with this book cements their reputation as a fantasy writer who can meld the real history of a place with the older stories and created something fresh and new. Highly recommended!

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in return for an honest review.

2/5 stars

This book had so much potential but just didn't hit the mark unfortunately. This is written in dual POV which really confused me to begin with. Brynhild and Gudrun are telling each other their stories to each other. Again this confused me and it just didn't work for me.

The story had potential as a retelling of norse mythology. There was a very slow burn love romance that just didn't feel like a love romance, not sure if anyone else felt this.

I have read some great story retellings but this one just didn't suck me in. I just didn't feel invested in the characters, they didn't feel human or seem to have genuine emotions. Because of the POV style, it was them telling the other character how they felt, it didn't feel like they felt it.

I am sad that this book didn't grab my attention as much as I hoped it would.

Love all the current crop of Greek & Roman mythological stories so thought I would try this Norse tale. Really enjoyed this retelling of the Norse myth of Brynhild, Sigurd and Gudrun. Hope the author continues with this saga. Thanks to Netgalley.

We can never have enough enviable stories told about women overcoming adversity to find love, power or both and this mythical retelling by Kate Heartfield is a wonderfully crafted story highlighting just that.

Reshaping the myth of Brynhildr, Gudrún, Fáfnir and The Dragon-Slayer Sigurdr with episodic storytelling and language that feels authentic, this will be a real treat for anyone with a love of Norse Mythology.

The author successfully pacts a lot of source material in, I loved the mixing of cultures and religions and that the story had a clear beginning, middle and end. I have a reasonable memory of this epic tale from school and I don’t mind at all that the author manipulated the story to suit a feminist audience, my only critique would be that while seperately I got a great feel for Brynhildr and Gudrun’s characters, I would have enjoyed seeing more of the development of their relationship.

Thank you to the author for an advance copy in return for an honest review

3.5 stars

The Valkyrie by Kate Heartfield is a beautifully poetic retelling of the story of Brynhildr and Gudrun. The story reads as a conversation between two women in love as they discuss their lives before they meet again in the end. There are battles fought, lost and won. There are historical moments mentioned throughout and visceral descriptions of war and the battlefield. When we first meet the two narrators of the story, Brynhildr is an exiled Valkyrie, punished for not following Odin’s orders and Gudrun is a princess off to marry Atilla’s brother Bleda in an attempt to garner peace. ‘The Valkyrie’ is bathed in Norse mythology with Odin, Loki, Freyja and Hel appearing throughout.

There was a reflective tone to the story, as two people who are looking back at the end of it all. There were sweet moments but if the characters hadn’t been telling me in their narrative what their feelings for each other were I wouldn’t have thought for a second that they cared for each other at all.

Thank you so much to the Author, Harped Collins and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. I can see that there was a lot of work and love put into the books creation.

The Valkyrie is a queer retelling of a Norse and the Germanic tale of Brynhild and Gudrun. The main sources used are The Song of the Nibelungs, the Völsunga saga, the Rose Garden of Worms, and the Prose Edda. I'm not very familiar with these particular stories, but I do know the basics, and I enjoyed the female perspective we got on the story. The Valkryie is narrated by our two protagonists, Brynhild - our fallen valkyrie - and Gudrun - princess of burgundy - as if the two were narrating their story to each other.

An enthralling read filled with monsters, epic battles, heroes and villains, and an endearing and tender love story.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book as a whole felt quite uneventful and didn’t really stand out to me. The points of view made it lack a lot of depth, in my opinion. The way it was written made it difficult to form a connection with the characters as it didn’t feel like they were speaking to you, the reader, but each other. Additionally, they were just telling emotions to each other, and not to the reader or telling us how they felt. I also struggle when a book is slow paced because I can easily get bored and want the plot to hurry up a bit as it drags on, this was the case. I’m a massive fan of mythology, so really wanted to enjoy this book, but I just couldn’t.

arc provided by netgalley

i love mythology and retellings and this met that criteria perfectly! i’ve never read norse fiction before so i didn’t really have any ground expectations but this is well written.

I enjoyed my time reading this book, and I really liked the mythological creatures & fantastical elements. I liked how much women supported each other throughout.

I did find some of the sentences were a little difficult to make sense of, and I preferred one perspective to the other so was sometimes waiting for preferred perspective to come back.

Valkyries are stunning and I want to see more of them in literature!

This isn’t a long book, 300 something pages, and yet a lot fills it. The pacing is a little off, to cover everything it’s not necessarily covered in enough detail to be truly satisfying, Midgard and Brynhild settling in is probably covered the most, but you’ve got a wrym, zombies, Valkyrie, Gods, battles, feuds, there is A LOT going on and it’s done well, it’s just if this book were longer we could have had so much more of it - I mean the wrym alone was so amazing and it was such a small part of this book, an army of undead soldiers, a little blip, they were so cool and I needed more! Even the Valkyrie themselves, I would have loved more of their battles, of getting to know them. But this book tries to achieve a lot in its relatively small number of pages. An extra say 100 pages could have changed everything.

The romance is pleasant enough but it feels like insta love, you don’t see it bloom between Brynhild and Gudrun, you don’t really see what they love about each other or even experience many interactions between them, just via the POVs they suddenly complete each other. That said the writing of their romance is beautiful so this isn’t a complaint necessarily, i just needed more moments.

As I’ve just mentioned, the true heart of this book is in the writing which is really quite beautiful. Books on Greek Gods/Ancient Greece are becoming increasingly common and yet what sets some apart is the way in known characters and stories are written and for me that was the case here. Kate Heartfield does a wonderful job of wiring an enchanting narrative here that made it stand out from other books in this ever growing genre.
Likewise the world building, of Midgard, Helheim etc, is really well done, creating delightful depth and imagery.

This is very much a feminist book and as a feminist I loved that. Brynhild is a fantastic, empowering character, at one point she literally hands a man up like a coat because she finds out he deceived her and still thinks he can have her. She is a solid character, brave, unrelenting, she does not submit or allow anyone to look down on her. All the women in this book are spectacular in fact - the men in the book are a little weak and/or menacing, I think bar a couple they all lie, scheme and the women have to make the real progress happen.

I did really enjoy this book, it has variety, beautiful writing and strong female characters - my only real complaint is how it tried to achieve a lot in too little pages, leading to briefness where I wanted to stay and experience more.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review

Amazon Summary

Brynhild is a Valkyrie: shieldmaiden of the Allfather, chooser of the slain. But now she too has fallen, flightless in her exile. Gudrun is a princess of Burgundy, a daughter of the Rhine, a prize for an invading king – a king whose brother Attila has other plans, and a dragon to call upon.

And in the songs to be sung, there is another hero: Sigurd, a warrior with a sword sharper than the new moon. As the legends tell, these names are destined to be lovers, fated as enemies. But here on Midgard, legends can be lies. For not all heroes are heroic, nor all monsters monstrous. And a shieldmaiden may yet find that love is the greatest weapon of all.

My review
This was a good Norse mythology read. This book is a retelling of the legend of Siegfried and Brynhild and i really enjoyed this retelling. Although based on a legend i though this was really well thought out, the characters were great and the plot interesting.

I really enjoyed reading this book.

The plot was well paced and I found that it kept me interested the whole way through.

The characters were well written and I found that they drew me into the book.

I struggled to put it down. I just wanted to keep reading.

Thank you for letting me review it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Harper Voyager for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: death, gore, violence, major character death, threat of sexual violence (none occurs)

"The Valkyrie" is a gorgeous retelling of Norse myth, focusing on Brynhild- a former Valkyrie that used to travel the battlefields claiming the dead, now exiled- and Gudrun- a princess and witch of Burgundy whose kingdom is under attack by Attila the Hun. Brynhild, forced to live life as a mortal woman, decides to attack the great dragon Fafnir, who has already destroyed much of the land of Burgundy. She is joined by Sigurd, a man who will one day be known as a great hero through history. Soon enough, Gudrun, Sigurd and Brynhild seem to be on an collision course to becoming legendary... if only Odin and other gods and the weight of history doesn't pull them down first.

I adored this book, even with only a little knowledge of Norse mythology behind me. I recognised the character of Sigurd and some of the names, but this version of the story focused on a sapphic version of the women's story while also smoothly combining mythology with history. I'd read one of Kate Heartfield's books before (one of the Assassin's Creed tie in novels) so I was delighted to be approved for this, her style of writing is so clear and original no matter what genre the story is in. I do wish there'd been more of a focus on Gudrun and Brynhild's romance, as the book concentrates so much on the world around them, but I loved the love letter/confessional tone of their POV's. I found all of the characters particularly tragic and heroic, especially Sigurd, Gudrun's brother Gunnar and Gudrun's mother (who as a river witch, couldn't leave their home). I read this book incredibly fast, finding myself unable to put it down once I started. I recommend it to anyone who wants to read f/f fantasy combined with history and mythology.

It is a gorgeous retelling of a infamous Norse myth. It tells the stories of two women: Brynhild, a fallen Valkyrie and shield maiden and Gudrun, a princess of Burgundy. It is about two women finding their way in the world of war and men.

I don't want to give too much of a synopsis because if you don't know the Norse myth then I don't want to give too much away. It was a beautiful retelling which was bloody, full of war and love - everything a great epic needs

I loved The Embroidered Book so I was so excited to read this and while I did enjoy it, I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It starts off really slow but does pick up about halfway. The storytelling was good but I think my main issue was that the characters felt flat to me, we didn't get a lot of depth to them and there wasn't a lot of character development. But overall it was still enjoyable.

I would like to thank NetGalley and HarperVoyager UK for providing me with the eARC of the book in exchange for an honest review!

The Valkyrie is a norse mythology retelling where we follow Brynhild, the exiled Valkyrie, who got entangled in politics, life and war affairs of the Burgundian royal family after meeting the ambitious warrior Sigurd. The story is also told from the perspective of the Burgundian princess Gudrun who tries to help her people and find her purpose in the world.

The Valkyrie is one of my most anticipated book releases this year! I got very interested in reading a retelling from the Norse mythology and it didn't disappoint as it got me interested to learn more about it. However, I didn't like the writing style and I couldn't enjoy the story because of it.

The narrative style was very different than I'm used to as the story is told from the dual POV in a way that both Gudrun and Brynhild are telling the story to each other. They describe events from their perspective to each other, and inserting emotions and their thoughts retrospectively. Unfortunately, this writing choice caused that every event, every interaction between characters, their emotions are told and not shown which made everything about the story just dull and shallow. I personally don't like this approach as I can't get into the story properly. I just felt very detached from the story and characters.

Even though it's very eventful and a lot happened in a such short book, the lyrical prose made it very slow-paced. The story contains romance as well, but it wasn't very believable. A lot of important details and events felt very rushed and without much depth.

I liked the story in general, and it made me interested in the Norse mythology so I'm glad I read it at least for this reason. Unfortunately, the writing style just wasn't for me at all.

I requested this after being already a fan of Heattfield's editing and she did not disappoint. I love the inclusion of female power and anger. I am not normally a fan of retellings but this one had me so intrigued for so much more. I adored it.

Another great mythology retelling, i haven't read many Norse Mythologies but this one was immersive and I got on with the writing style, with the exception of some modern slang used which was jarring.

Brynhild was a Valkyrie, flying high over the battlefield and choosing men to enter Valhalla, until she upset Odin and was banished to Midgard. Gudrun is a princess of Burgundy, beset by enemies and a pawn in negotiations. When the Huns arrive at Gudrun's home they bring a Lindworm with poisonous breath and Gudrun's brother runs away. Bryhild meets a young man tasked to kill the Lindworm and together they succeed. However this comes at great personal cost for Brynhild and Gudrun.
I really loved this easy read which takes the legend of Brynhild and places it in the context of the fall of the Roman Empire as small states fight for power. There is a good dose of magic built in but no so much that it becomes completely fantastical. It's just a really enjoyable light read.