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As we reach the end of May, it's time for the Smart Women Read Romance Patreon live review! This month the theme was Vikings and the book that won the poll was Johanna Lindsey's Fires of Winter. This is the first in her Haardrad Family series.
I am really torn on how to rate this book. If I were to be super specific, I think I would go with 3.5-stars. I'll get more into it, but this book was either super captivating and I was loving it or I was bored about the repetition or info dump and just wanted to move on. Such a rollercoaster read for me. I did want to round down instead of up on goodreads because it's overall not a 4-star.
We meet our heroine Brenna, as she kind-of rescues a lady in her town. She has been raised as a boy and taught the things that boys usually learn. For example, how to fight and such and not as much about "women's work" and household chores. She's been betrothed to a Viking as per her father's wishes (and against hers). He's secured an alliance to protect them from the pillaging. However, it was a trick and Anselm (our hero's father) has come to pillage the town, steal their wealth and also steals 7 women as slaves. He decides to give Brenna to his son Garrick as a slave instead of his bride. I should also note, Garrick has been away on a trading voyage, so wasn't aware of anything.
Now, going in I knew that there would most likely be problematic scenes. Not only is this published in 1980, but it's about Vikings. I mean give me a Viking romance, even written recently, that doesn't address the ruthlessness. Do I condone rape, absolutely not. Is it still something that happened and despite it being wrong, accepted as normal especially for Vikings, Yes. So while I don't look for realism necessarily with historicals, it doesn't bother me (or trigger me) at all when reading these. Part of that is partially because I expect it going in. And while I don't like that it happens, I did like that the various rape events weren't as detailed as others. I don't like saying that they were written flippantly (it was), but it was nice that we didn't have to experience it ourselves as a reader. Even though that's not a trigger for me, when it's written like that it's still hard to read.
Anyway, back to my actual issues with the book. First off, Garrick and Brenna didn't meet until just after 20% into the book. There was so much info-dumping and unnecessary explanations and scenes that I could've done without. Not only did it take so long for them to meet, but their rollercoaster relationship really annoyed me. This was also later in the book, but there was too much unnecessary information. While I loved that Brenna was strong and bull-headed and wouldn't just roll over, I feel like she was almost too stubborn to live (despite her stubbornness keeping her alive later on in the book). A lot of the times she didn't realize when to back down or just hold her tongue, especially for her survival. Some of the times their arguing and banter was good and there was progress made in them understanding each other. These parts I didn't mind. The next argument however would just make them both angry and set them back. It was constantly one step forward then five steps back.
I also felt this could've been a shorter book. There was too much happening to these two. I get that it was supposed to cover a large amount of time, but they couldn't get a rest. There was always some sort of outside conflict that just would make the internal conflict between them even worse. The few times they came to an accord and were starting to really enjoy their time together and not argue as much, something drastic would happen, like Brenna getting kidnapped.
I don't know, there were parts I enjoyed and it kept me reading and intrigued, but about 60% in I realized I started checking my percentage quite frequently. Like I said, just too much happened to them and almost all of it was necessary. I also didn't like the storyline with the Anselm. I feel like him showing his regret was an unexpected trait for a Viking chieftan, however it felt like he was just regretful about Brenna. What about the other women forced into slavery? What about all of the innocents killed when they were taken? What about everything that was destroyed by his unhonorable actions? I feel like Johanna tried to redeem Anselm more than Garrick. And I didn't really mention it above, but we do see Brenna get raped by Garrick multiple times. (FYI: She also has an attempt by her second kidnapper.) Garrick really needed to grovel or show regret more than his freaking father.
As far as older romances go, I really didn't mind this one. There were points where it was a 4 or 4.5-star read and others where it was at a 2-star. I do feel like as long as you are aware of what you are going into, the rape and problematic scenes aren't as graphic. You just need to be conscious of what you are choosing to read, especially with books published in the 1970s and 80s. I might at some point pick up the other books in the series, but it's not at the top of my list. I did see that they have pretty a pretty high average on goodreads. I'm can't wait for the live show tomorrow night to see what everyone else thought.
Have you read Fires of Winter?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Fires of Winter, Johanna Lindsey, 3-stars, 0 days, eBook, 362 pages, published in 1980
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