3 Stars from me.

This is book two in the series Vikings of Highgard.

The saga of the three remaining Highgardian women continues with Brenna the Healer and Mikkel the Black as the focal characters. Brenna arrives in Midgard in the aftermath of the battle that was at the end of the first book. The small group of survivors from Highgard are travelling to Ireland with a fleet of ships captained by Mikkel to rescue Helena and Hans, who were both taken during the battle.

Brenna is cautious about starting a relationship with Mikkel, as there is much about him that she is uncertain and afraid of. She even shows some interest in one of the warriors on board Mikkel’s ship at first. Mikkel makes it perfectly clear that he wants Brenna for himself.

As with the first book, the world and the story are very interesting and I really wanted to know what will happen next. But the writing tended to be very long-winded and it took a long time to get to the next point in the story. For example, it takes several chapters of Brenna and Asta’s interactions on Highgard before Brenna finally starts making her journey to Midgard. It felt like I had to push myself to keep reading through some sections, because I really wanted to find out what is going to happen to all of them.

A few new characters were introduced and they did add great value to the story. I really liked Brenna and Mikkel, and the two of them together. Brenna doesn’t take nonsense from anyone and she is pretty self-confident and knows what she wants. Well, she was having trouble with the interactions between a man and a woman at first, which makes sense, as she has had no experience with it up until that point. Mikkel is a man with a dark and mysterious past and a rocky reputation. He is desperate to mend the fences with Brandr. There is a lot more to him than what was revealed in the previous book.

The ending was very drawn out and our heroes had two major quests to complete. And the three sisters discover that there is a lot more to the story of their mother, and Highgard, than they were originally told by everyone around them.

I was given an advanced reader copy by the publisher, Tule Publishing. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Was I hooked by this book? I was invested enough to want to see how it ended.

Genre: Romance, Paranormal