Brought together by a legendary hero, an exiled Valkyrie and a princess determined to protect her people find a place for themselves beyond the bounds of the Norse sagas in The Valkyrie, a vivid and inventive reimagining by Kate Heartfield (The Embroidered Book; Alice Payne Arrives).
Although Brynhild has been exiled from Valhalla and is no longer a Valkyrie, Odin isn't done with her yet. Maybe she defied him when she took the road to the east against his advice, or maybe he'd been manipulating her from the start. But there she finds a lindworm, "a great scaled serpent, with clawed feet and a head like a dragon's." She also finds the man with whom she'll fight it, Sigurd, whose deeds will live through the centuries. Meanwhile, Gudrun, a Burgundian princess, has been betrothed in a strategic alliance with one of the Hunnish brother-kings, but Attila seizes sole power and uses the lindworm to besiege the kingdom.
Heartfield makes the love story between Brynhild and Gudrun feel less like a new twist than a subtext that has always been present. Although their relationship frames the novel, each woman telling her side of the story to the other, its scope is worthy of an epic saga. Heartfield wrestles with issues of human versus divine will, the way a person can be corrupted by believing their own legends, and how people carry on even when overrun by clashes between great powers. Yet no matter how high the stakes become, the story never loses its heart. Fans of Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Uprooted by Naomi Novik should snatch this up. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library