I picked up this book because I was interested in reading a book that dealt with the Valkyrie, especially after watching "Thor 3". Long story short, there were aspects of this book that I liked and others that I felt could have been improved with some editing. I truly enjoyed all the characters in the book, especially the main character. I appreciated how she was a member of the LGBT+ community, but it wasn't a big deal or something that overshadowed other parts of her identity.

This futuristic-type world where humans know of other creatures and immortals is probably what I liked the most. There was so much mythology I didn't know about that I got exposed to. That being said, I would have liked a bit of a better explanation for why the world was the way it was.

My main problem with the book was the plot. Much like the other book I read from this author, the plot starts one way in the beginning and then veered another way towards the middle/end, which is fine, but the pacing was not executed properly. The entire middle/end felt rush and did not fit in with the rest of the book at all. That being said, I'll still probably read the sequel because I am interested to see where the store goes next, especially after the little plot-twist like thing that happened in the end, leaving us with a cliffhanger.

Oh, I really enjoyed reading these books! They were in a different world, of immortals and mortals, and I loved the world building! Plus these characters were pretty great, though sometimes I just wanted to shake my fists at them!

One big thing was free will, and the fact that the people in this world, they don't have it. Everything that was happening, was pre-determined to happen. On one hand, boo, no free choices and making your own mistakes and wonderful decisions, on the other, you're not to blame for anything that goes wrong in your life.

The first book was more about what happens when a Valkyrie doesn't kill an immortal like they're supposed to. Because Malin's mom decided that this one dude that she was supposed to kill was a good person and did good for the world. And boy, were there consequences!

The second book continued with those consequences, but there were also the missions that Odin was sending her on, and discovering just how much they could change the world. Some pretty heady stuff, what with the world in chaos, and all! Loved how it all worked out!

These books were so great, and I really enjoyed reading them!

Another excellent novel from Amanda Hocking! I thoroughly enjoy her brand of mythology and the supernatural stories that she spins. "Between the Blade and the Heart" was similarly excellent.

.Overall, it's a book I enjoyed. I enjoyed the construction of the characters and the story. I'll be waiting to read the next book in this duology.

BETWEEN THE BLADE AND THE HEART, and its sequel, FROM THE EARTH TO THE SHADOWS, is a book about mortals and monsters, divine and demonic beings, and everything between. It’s narrated by Malin, a young Valkyrie-in-training, who’s quest is to avenge her mother’s death and prevent the end of the world. Valkyries are human women, endowed with power and strength beyond their human bodies, responsible for returning immortals to their afterworld.

The story takes place on an alternate and future earth, where immortals of all sorts have lived with humanity for centuries. In the first book, the setting is primarily in urban Chicago, though its not any Chicago we know. Toward the end of the first book, and for the beginning of FROM THE EARTH TO THE SHADOWS, we follow Malin and her ragtag crew of friends into the jungles of South America, where dense forests and immortal beings protect the entrance to the immortal afterworld. We dive into the afterworld with Malin, discovering friends and foes along the way.

The Valkyrie duology is told in first person past tense, which lends a sense of distance to the story, as if all the events within have already happened. We know Malin at least is safe enough to tell the tale. In this case, I felt it took away any push for urgency, where I believe a present tense might’ve been more effective.

I can’t give much else away about the plot because it’ll spoil book one, but overall both of these books were a fun read. I love mythology of all types, and delving into a book inspired by Norse mythology was a treat. Like I mentioned earlier, the pacing of the book felt a little stilted, just because I didn’t feel any real sense of urgency from the characters. The writing was good, if not slow in parts, especially when explanations were needed on the history of any particular god or demi-god. But don't let that put you off! Sometimes explanations are needed before we get into any action, otherwise readers might be confused as to why Malin facing a certain creature is a scary prospect!

If you like urban fantasies with mythological twists, definitely check out The Valkyrie duology by Amanda Hocking. You’ll have to start at the first book, BETWEEN THE BLADE AND THE HEART to get the full picture, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Between the Blade and the Heart was a fun read. I loved the setting! It was sort of like an urban fantasy set in an alternate world where immortals roamed and gods existed. The valkyries were human women that were chosen to dispose of immortals, as choosing other immortals would provide a conflict of interest. The main character, Malin, was a valkyrie in training and a student when she wasn’t out trying to take down the next immortals on the list.

I wouldn’t consider Between the Blade and the Heart anything like Game of Thrones or Blade Runner, so the synopsis is a bit misleading in that regard. I’d categorize it with other urban fantasies blended with a bit of Norse mythology. I think the comparison in the synopsis is trying to allude to the fact that there are gods and it’s futuristic in a way. It was more in the same vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both fun and adventurous.

Malin was a character I couldn’t help but want to root for. She went against the grain, cared about her friends, felt sort of unloved, and pushed people away who cared too much about her. She was interesting and I wanted to sort of figure her out, while also following her on this epic adventure where things went drastically wrong. Everything she thought she believed was basically wrong and her world was upside down. She had to form some alliances that weren’t comfortable, like teaming up with a guy who tried to kill her and teaming up with her ex girlfriend. Awkward, right?

The personalities of the characters were what made this book shine. None of your typical tropes were present (aside from girl suddenly possesses the qualities to save the world).The main character was sarcastic, a bit rough around the edges, and yet soft and vulnerable in different ways.

I definitely recommend the book if you’re looking for a fast paced, fun, and entertaining urban fantasy. I loved the attitude and sass of the characters, the relationship drama, and the serious fate-of-the-world drama. It was enjoyable to read!

Malin is a Valkyrie and, as such, it is her responsibility to slay immortals when their time is up. But when she discovers that her own mother failed in this responsibility, Malin and her friends undertake the task of restoring balance to the world.

The synopsis of this book made it sound like a Norse fantasy. Instead, it’s more of a YA fantasy with some Norse influences. This was okay, because I do enjoy YA fantasy fiction, but it was a little disappointing that it wasn’t what I expected.

To be perfectly honest, I found the majority of this book rather boring. It wasn’t until very near the end that the story picked up and I started to get into it. I did enjoy the humour in this book, and the unusual love triangle.
It’s a good read, but it took a little too long to get going.

I used to devour anything Amanda wrote, so I was excited to read this. I didn't necessarily love it, but I did enjoy it. I look forward to the next book.

Definitely a unique story with a topic you don't typically read about: valkyries! It was an interesting read and the main character was pretty cool to follow. I'm still on the fence about whether or not I'll continue with the second book, but this one was definitely a good pick up!

Driving into this distinctive and complicated world that pulls you in almost instantly. With the gripping twists and turns it kept me compelled to the very end, as I could not put it down. These characters are believeable even with the characteristic of each character she protrays in their environment. The author Amanda Hocking depicts the Norse mythology and folklore in a way that paints a picture of astonishing characters across each page of her story. Her storyline is set in a gloomy, rutting and deadly world where mortals and immortals live together, in a shatterable society that can only be balanced with the enforcement of the Valkyries. When a dark secert is uncovered that has been hidden is revealed, it may upset the order of balance pushing a world into chaos. I can’t wait to read more from this author. If you love this book as much as I did, I highly recommand reading the second book in the series FROM the EARTH to the SHADOWS........

Valkyries are not a part of my normal rotation of characters to read about so it was new territory for me. I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the story. Malin and Oona are relatable characters and the story moves at a good pace. Not one of the books I devoured, but a decent enough read that I will pick up the second installment.

Before I started reading this book I was already excited. I have read another series by her and I found them to be very fun and fast reads, perfect for getting out of reading slumps. Right off the bat, I was getting a Mortal Instruments vibe from it which is not my favourite series, so I was a little worried. Once I read a bit further and there was more world development I started to focus more on the differences and the similarities didn’t bother me anymore.

While reading I sometimes had a hard time imagining the world and I feel like I probably misunderstood some things. From my understanding, this is set in the future and humans and immortals live on a precarious line of coexisting. So if you went out you would see humans and someone with horns and it wouldn’t be strange. There are also a ton of really cool creatures. My favourite would be Malin’s pet, it is a bunny with antlers and wings. It threw me off at first having fantasy and hovercrafts in the same book. I think that’s because I didn’t realize it was set in a futuristic world, once I realized that it was much easier to visualize and get into.

One thing that kind of took me by surprise considering this is marketed as a young adult novel is that she has 3 sexual partners. One of them is her ex-girlfriend, one is her mechanic and the other is a guy she just met and knows next to nothing about. The intimate scenes aren’t overly graphic, but the main character thinks about sex quite often and doesn’t really know the meaning of right time or place. Considering they are going against a powerful drauger you’d think she would be more concerned with how to stay alive instead of how to get laid.

While I enjoyed reading this book it is not my favourite read. It was fun, quick and had lots of potential but I feel like it fell a bit off its mark. I would recommend to certain people. If you liked her other books or the mortal instruments this might be the book for you. To me, this book is a 3 star out of 5 stars. I had fun reading it, but I don’t think it was exceptional.

Between the Blade and the Heart, the first in the Valkyrie duology, introduces Malin, a Valkyrie-in-training, whose job it is to slay immortals and return them to the afterlife. When she discovers that her mentor/mother failed to carry out an assignment, resulting in the death of a fellow Valkyrie, Malin joins her son Archer to find the culprit and kill him. Malin's roommate Oona, a sorceress-in-training, and her ex-girlfriend Quinn come along for the ride. The story is immersed in Norse mythology and includes many fascinating creatures, making this novel heavy on world-building, but not lacking in action and romance. The obligatory love triangle has a new twist in that Malin is bisexual. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers thrilled that the sequel From the Earth to the Shadows, comes out April 24, 2018.

Short and Sweet
Malin is a valkyrie and her responsibility is to send immortals back to the underworld when it’s their time to go. Everything changes for Malin when a mysterious boy she’s never met shows up at her front door claiming that her mother didn’t send an immortal back. With this new revelation Malin must now try to find the immortal herself, send him to the underworld, and make things right.
Characters
Malin: Our main character and she’s a valkyrie. I liked Malin she was a strong female character and was determined to do her job as a valkyrie. Mal is independent and when she learns about her mothers mistake she takes it upon herself to try to fix it.
Oona: Malins best friend. Oona is a mortal but she is also a sorceress in training. Oona is caring and she always tries to look out for Malin’s well-being.
Asher: The son of the valkyrie. Asher’s mother was killed by the immortal Marlow let live. Now Asher is looking for justice for his mother.
Quinn: Another valkyrie and Malin’s ex-girlfriend. Quinn still cares about Malin and she shows it with her actions.
Marlow: Malin’s mother, who is also a valkyrie. This isn’t a normal mother and daughter relationship, they’re on a first name basis and there isn’t much affection between the two.
Romance
Asher and Malin: I feel like this was more of a physical attraction more then anything else. But they seemed to like each other and their feelings for each other grew as the book went on and in the end Malin truly cared for Asher.
Quinn and Malin: So this one is strange mainly because these two were already broken up. There were a lot of awkward encounters mainly because Quinn still has feelings for Malin but Malin doesn’t feel the same and she just kept pushing Quinn away but at other times she would give into Quinn. I didn’t like this at all.
My Thoughts
~ It took me a while to get into this book as I felt like there wasn’t much action going on in the beginning of the book.
~ I loved when all the action began to take place which was halfway through the book when I got to that point I couldn’t put the book down I was so interested to see what would happen next.
~ The plot was well played out, I liked that Malin had to try to find Tamerlane (the immortal) and find out that he wasn’t going to be as easy to send back as she thought.
~ My favorite part of the book was when all the characters banded together to help Malin find Tamerlane and send him to the underworld.
~ There were a lot of twist in this book that kept me wondering what would happen next.
~ I felt that there was a lot of character growth with Malin, she’s still just a valkyrie in training she doesn’t have her license yet, but she has to endure things she probably didn’t think she would have to deal with so soon.
~ I enjoyed reading this book, I don’t think I’ve read any other books that have valkyries involved and I liked the mythology aspect of the book.
Overall
I liked this book a lot more then I expected I would! It definitely helped get me out of my reading slump, my only regret was that I didn’t finish it sooner! This is a duology and the second book comes out next month, and I plan on reading it to find out how this series ends! I recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun book that has mythology and a strong female lead.

Love getting to read these books. I've been a fan from the beginning.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I want to start off and say that Between the Blade and the Heart, referred to as BtBaH for the remainder of this review, was a struggle for me to read. I found myself starting to read the story, then instantly looking for something else to do. It was really hard to focus and get through this story. The premise sounded great: Malin is a Valkyrie whose responsibility is to slay immortals and return them to the underworld. When Malin discovers that her mother spared the life of an immortal who was destined to die, her world is thrown into chaos.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve recently read a plethora of Norse and Celtic mythology-inspired books recently, but BtBaH severely lacks good world-building. It felt like a cheap version where a bunch of mythological creatures are just thrown in a vaguely described cityscape, and you have to fill in the blanks with whatever you can think up in order to stay interested in what’s going on. I also found myself, despite having a familiarity with some of the creatures, having to stop and look up some of the creatures that were mentioned, leaving me feeling out of the loop having to double-check if I missed a description somewhere in the previous pages.

Malin could’ve been a strong badass bisexual main character, but I found myself struggling to care about her and what was happening to her. Perhaps it was because the story is limited to her POV. If other people’s POVs were introduced, more depth and development could’ve been established for the characters.The relationships, overall, felt superficial to me, and left me not caring about what happened the the characters. There’s a love triangle. I found myself not biased towards either of the love interests, perhaps as a result of the lack of development.

The ending of BtBaH was a big letdown. Without spoilers, there’s the build-up and hype about having to find this person and how they have to be stopped, and in no more than two sentences, the conflict of the plot is resolved. It left me wanting more. The book does end on somewhat of a cliffhanger, and I will be reading the next book in the series to see if the overall story improves. If I continue to experience the same struggle that this book gave me; however, I will likely not finish it.

As a fan of Amanda Hocking, I was very thankful for the opportunity to review this book. I really love Norse mythology, so I was really looking forward to this new series. While I did enjoy the book, there were some things that just weren’t quite there for me. I really loved the premise of the book. Is has a great mix of mythology/urban fantasy, which really works! However, the romance...*spoiler alert* it’s a love triangle, and not a well fleshed out one. Neither pairing feels like it is working very well, honestly. They just don’t feel like they are quite invested enough, which made me wholly uncaring. Finally, the world building needs some work. It’s just not quite up to the standard that I know that Hocking can produce, and that I like to see from any good fantasy. I’m hopeful that this can be remedied in forthcoming installments. Thanks, again, for the opportunity to review, and I’m looking forward to the next one!

Amanda Hocking is an author I have been reading and following for years, since her delightful Trylle series. I was so pleased that Between the Blade and the Heart lived up to what I knew Hocking was capable of. I enjoyed the cast of characters and particularly, the hints of mythology we got in here. I love Norse myth so I was extremely pleased to see it here.

Still, there were things that could have been done better. I certainly more time could have been afforded to the worldbuilding, as it was an interesting setting but I just felt that I needed more details. Overall, an entertaining read full of a few of my favorite things.

This books was well written and had diverse representation. I can't wait to continue with this series

I was really looking forward to this new series as am I a huge fan of Amanda's, but this one fell short. And it's for various reasons, and most of them are just more of a personal thing.

Between the Blade and the Heart is a new series from Amanda. It's based on Norse Mythology and more precisely, the Valkyrie. The Valkyries are mortal women with supernatural strength that the Gods had created to destroy the immortals and return them to the Underworld. The blurb tells you the main plot of the story, so I won't repeat all that.

Let me tell you what I enjoyed most about this book - the world itself. Amanda has always done a great job of describing the world in which everything is to set forth. I loved the different backgrounds on the characters and that there was no biases on their sexual preferences (Malin is bi-sexual). The diversity in this book is what kept me interested in this book.

Where I had a hard time connecting was the characters and the love triangle aspect. Outside of the diversity of the characters, I really didn't connect to any of them. I have no qualms about love triangles, but I had hard time really understanding this one. Again, I truly believe it's because I couldn't connect to any of the characters, so anything beyond that was hard for me to grasp onto.

The story felt a bit slow too for me. I found myself glazing over parts and not feeling completely immersed in the story, like I was hoping. There was something lacking from the character development that kept me from really enjoying this book more.

Overall, it was an ok start to the series. I am still up in the air on if I will continue. A part of me wants to know what happens next, but another part of me is afraid I will be wasting my time if I don't feel any connections to the characters.

If you love YA books that are set in different worlds, I would give this book a go. It's definitely one where you have to see for yourself if it's the book for you.