This book tells us the story of Hirka, a young girl who is different because she has no tail, so she has always been a bit of an outcast. The twelve people of the council rule the world and protect the Blind people. At 15, Hirka is old enough to participate in the ritual ceremony, the problem is that she doesn't feel the energy of the earth like everyone else. So she discovers that she is not from this world and that because of her the Blind are invading this world and killing people.
I like Hirka, she is reckless, not afraid of many things, she sometimes does as she pleases at the risk of being in danger. She has not had a simple life but she is happy all the same. She finds Rime, her childhood friend and her little crush even if she takes a long time to accept him. Hirka will know betrayal, fear, danger and she will discover who she really is.
Rime is an intelligent boy, he is the grandson of the Seer, he should have taken her place in the council but he preferred to become one of the assassins of the council. He will do everything to protect Hirka, he will sometimes arrive too late but he tries to do his best. He too will feel betrayed, he will discover things that deep down he already knew but the revelation will be a shock to him.
I liked the story very much, the fact that the council hides a lot of things from the people, including the fact that they are only protecting themselves. There are some people among the members of the council who are not really reliable.
And then there is Eirik, I really loved him, he is a good clan leader, he is understanding but he will not give up and will not give in to the council.
I also really liked the bond between Hirka and her raven. It is a very strong bond between them.
Siri Pettersen is a Norwegian author and the trilogy has already been released in full there. Volume two is coming out in October in the US, so there will be 2 volumes in one year. I love this idea.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for honest review.

I love norse myth, and Odin's Child was amazing. All the world building and mythology reference were spot on. Rime and Hirka, along with Ilume and other characters in this book, are perfect personalization from what you expect from norse myth people.

The only setback is the ending because I want a slightly different end for this beautiful tale. Only slightly (I wish someone stayed). But that aside, it was a wonderful read!

2.5 stars

Headlines:
Ravens
Tails
Beliefs smashed

Whilst the title might suggest a link with old Norsk gods, it actually doesn't refer to that lore or known belief system at all. The phrasing 'odin's child' isn't necessarily explained (nor is much else) but it refers to Hirka, the girl poised on womanhood being not of the world she was born into but from another world.

Things I liked about the book were some of the characters like Hirka (MC), Rime and Errik but the story and the world never grabbed me. The plot was long and convoluted and when you lacked the foundations or explanations as a reader, it really was frustrating. I stuck around for the characters.

This was a long book and to be honest, I spent much of it confused. There is no show and no tell, you just have to stick around for 500+ pages to get some sense of the world building and these tenets - the might, the blind, binding, the rite. I remain confused about some elements of the world, even at the end.

I did have to have a conversation with friend who read it to help decide whether to dnf or stick with it. Am I glad I stuck with it? I'm not sure to be honest and sadly, I don't see myself continuing with the series.

Thank you to the publisheer for the early review copy.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was so excited to start reading Odin’s Child because I had not read much Norse Mythology. The premise sounded unique and so enticing! We learn about Hirka and Rime and how they are from vastly different worlds. In a society where the rot is born from the Tailless, Hirka grows up thinking that her tail was taken by wolves. Only to learn that she was in fact born a Child of Odin (aka Tailless) and was found as a baby by her father who covered it up to protect her. Here is where the drama, adventure, and plot should have begun. However, it felt very drawn out and like there was too much extraneous background that distracted you from getting pulled into he adventure and the mystery right away. With Hirka and Rime, you know there is supposed to be palpable tension between these two but it didn’t fully hit. I did not feel a connection to the characters all the time like I feel that I should have. I felt like there was a lot of additional dialogue just for dialogues sake that didn’t help contribute to this story and I trudged through reading it at times. That being said, at other times I was very interested in the plot and what was happening, but I think it needed to be about 100 pages less than it is.

Overall I would say if you enjoy mythological stories give it a try, I did truly enjoy pieces of this book a lot.

This is really an awesome story but it took so long to be translated, and I feel like I have read the story a dozen times before. Unfortunate.

I was so excited going into this book because of the fact that this is a norse mythology inspired medieval world setting and a translated work, but oh boy this was a mess.
Ill start with the positives, the writing style. It was alluring in the beginning and had a hold on me. As for the worldbuilding i found it very rich and intriguing!!
But thats about it. It had rape victim blaming so an instant no-no for me. And the entire thing was set up in the sense it was just a plot point to attract a certain audience? It was used for the sake of it and was handled so badly. And the villain had no nuance just committing crimes for the sake of it, bitch give me reasons give me why he does what he does.
 And then the pacing? Absolutely horrible and so so damn slow i was waiting for something with substance to happen. This paired up with the fact that i was told nothing about the world building for the entirety of the beginning and just thrown into the world with no explanations really annoyed me. While i dont like info dumps that doesn’t mean i want to be completely kept in the dark. And a lot of scenes could’ve been cut and the story would be way better off. Too many scenes that did not carry the story forward.
Now with characters. I hate Rime with the entirety of my soul. Rich emo boy complaining about how hard his life is?? Bitch stfu you’ve had it so much better than most of the other characters i do not want to listen to u whining about ur rich problems. And then he rejects it all... FOR WHAT???????? HUH?? I just hate stupid decisions like this like you could just be so much better off using that wealth into making a life u want?? He’s the definition of the hot rich boy whining bc he’s hot and rich. Now with Hirka, how come EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER likes her??? Isnt that too convenient?? She too is a mess with how stupid she is. Yes she’s young and young people are stupid BUT im just infuriated i hate these type of characters especially because she doesn’t get any better??? There was no development on her as a character. And the romance just, unbearably stupid. And her jealousy towards every other girl is also a no-no.
All in all, i just simply did not like this book at all. Note: i got an ARC via NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this approach to Norse Mythology. I am a huge mythology nerd, so this approach really felt new and interesting. I also loved the sense of belonging and finding yourself in this novel. I think that's where this story shines. The main character really grabs your attention and makes you feel attached and wanting to know what will happen to her next.

This book was a really fun and enjoyable read. The characters were relatable and had great depth. I definitely recommend it and will be ordering copies for my library.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A thought provoking, complex and epic Fantasy tale.

The world building in this tale was impressive and compelling. I loved our main characters and they're growth throughout the tale. The forbidden love was excruciating!

Some parts of the tale I found slow and confusing, but otherwise thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately, I DNF'd this book. It has a promising plot, but confusing execution. I later heard that this is a translation... and it shows. Don't get me wrong, translations aren't bad, but some things can't translate directly and still sound good.

The story itself is fascinating and engaging. I really believe that every book has it's audience and Odin's Child deserves to be acknowledged.

Odin's Child was filled with norse folklore, a childhood friends to lovers and forbidden romance, adventure, and the prospect of evil lurking in the holiest of places. And as much as all of that sounds like exactly my cup of tea (because what’s there not to like about all that?), I had a lot of issues with this book, which ended up with my overall disappointment in this story.

My first axe to grind with Odin’s Child is the writing. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a translation from Nowregian to English, if things got lost in translation, or if that was indeed the way the original content was supposed to sound like, but the writing didn’t click for me. I couldn’t connect with it, and consequently I couldn’t connect with the characters at all. The writing felt clipped, with short sentences that didn’t flow or felt inorganic in the English language. Because it’s also written in third person, everything felt standoffish, cold, unable to connect or care for what I was reading. The dry writing didn’t help at all either when the pacing of this book was as slow as a slug. Maybe the book needed of an extra round of editing and the chopping off of a significant amount of pages because the slow pace and never-ending addition of scenes that went nowhere affected my overall reading experience to the point of wanting to DNF the book altogether.

And here comes another problem I had with this book. The lack of explanation of the world-building. I had no idea what I was reading, or what anything was supposed to mean. The amount of terms and terminology thrown at you as soon as you start this book made it impossible for me to understand anything when no explanations were provided as to how anything worked. The Might, the blind, the Rite, the undead, Kolkagga, children of Odin, and so on and so forth these terms were mentioned in every single page without a single explanation as what they were or how they worked. While the book gets its inspiration from Norse mythology, there’s only so much that an outsider reader can know, and the rest was just a guessing game trying to follow through and make sense of whatever was going on.

But not everything was a disappointment and yes, I’m talking about Rime and Hirka’s relationship and dynamic. I’ve always been a sucker for angsty romances and forbidden relationships between characters that no matter how much they love and care for each other, there are significant reasons why they cannot be together. The angst was not lost in Odin’s Child either. Not only are the characters separated because of their differing social classes and status amongst the community, but also because of Hirka’s secret of being a child of Odin (whatever that means, since again, nothing was explained as to what that actually entails). Those reasons keep our protagonists apart and unable to fully surrender themselves to their feelings. Given the way this book ended, one cannot help but think that those reasons are going to be fully elaborated on in the second book of the series. And still, even if the only driving force for me to keep reading this book were those two and their dynamic, I couldn’t fully connect with them separately.

While I’m left more with a feeling of disappointment of what this story could give, there were conceptual things that were interesting to me in this story, but unfortunately everything fell through in their very lackluster execution.

Influenced by Norse mythology, Siri created a world of magic, politics, belief and danger that was all her own. Hirka, an outsider mid-teen about to undergo the ritual all in her world did at that age, discovered a truth that changed everything she ever believed. She showed remarkable maturity at times and at others showed the emotional immaturity and volatility of her age. She was a compelling heroine of a fantasy that started out slow but picked up as the story spread beyond her small village. She became caught up in the political unrest about to erupt into civil war but there were far more world shattering plots, dangers and truths that waited in the wings…

The story was also told, to much less extent, through the view point of Rime, a privileged young man who turned his back on his expected role in politics to serve society in what he thought he was a better way. He was an interesting character. Rime started out thinking he was bending the rules to help a friend but what happened devastated his entire belief system. In many ways I thought he was shattered more than Hirka by the revelations of their society.

What started as a tale about a young woman trying to find her place in society became much, much more as the action picked up and more and more secrets were revealed. The more I thought about the book afterwards I realized how deftly Petersen wove many strands together that I thought were only window dressing to make a much bigger story. In other words, I could read this many times and still pick up on details I hadn’t noticed before.

I wanted to spend more time in this world and explore. I don’t know if that will happen in the next book, but the story isn’t finished and I want to find out what happens next. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was kindly given a copy of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. Normally I find myself a bit annoyed with YA books characters and their immaturity but this was not the case in Odin's Child. The book is Norse without being super viking-y (great made up word), if that makes sense. It doesn't have shield walls or Valhalla yet captures this really authentic Norse world and characters. Oh - and they all have tails!

The main character, Hirka, is 15 years old (and tailless), but due to the Norse setting she isn't a child like today's standards. She is a really likeable character - feisty, funny, clever. She discovers a secret about herself that will result in her death. She goes on a journey to escape her fate and we are treated to the rich worlds and fantastic characters that Siri Pettersen has written. I could visualise so many of her characters and felt that even the 'baddies' were really relatable in one way or another.

Our second main character is Rime, an 18 year old man who grew up with Hirka. He is heir to one of the 12 council seats - the most powerful people in the world. Despite being the chosen child, the most powerful one, he does not want this life for himself. Instead he finds his own destiny and along the way helps Hirka. It was really lovely reading about this strong, powerful man who still kept remnants of his childhood and his strong moral compass.

The magic in this world is a really interesting idea, and not something I've read before. It's a bit hard to get your head around at first but essentially the people all use the Earth's magic, the 'Might', and bind it to their will. Our poor Hirka can't use this skill and Rime is the most powerful at using it - a great contrast!

Without giving too much of the plot away, this book has left me dying to read book 2 when it's translated later this year. I could not put this book down and felt so invested in the characters. As much as the ending broke my heart a little bit, I'm really glad that it happened that way (you'll know what I mean if you read it).

The translation is fantastic and the writing is brilliant. A joy to read.

Arc received from Netgalley for an honest review

Unfortunately I DNF'd this book within the first quarter.
I don't think this is entirely the books fault but it did start to put me in a reading slump since it was a little confusing to me. I was having a hard time keeping track of who everyone was and remembering their names. I wasn't invested in anything although I did enjoy the writing style.

If I picked this up at a later date, it is possible I would have enjoyed it. I'd need to invest a lot of my time and there is a lot of potential in the writing of this book. That being said, I couldn't get myself to keep reading, I really wanted to due to the concept and prologue really pulling me in, but unfortunately I wasn't able to.

This is a book I can see many enjoying, so I would recommend others to try it in order to see for themselves.

With thanks to Siri Pettersen and Arctis Books for an advanced readers copy of this book.

Wow what a ride that was! I'd heard great things about this book previously and with it finally being published in English I was so excited to get my hands on it.

I'll start by saying anything inspired by mythology is win in my book, but there's not too many Norse inspired fiction out there and I really enjoyed the learning journey.

The story follow's Hirka, a girl who stands out in her village because of her lack of tail, as she prepares to under go the rituals that will allow her to enter adulthood. There's wonderful worldbuilding in this book, with really relatable characters. I ended up having a rollercoaster of emotions during this read, going from laughing out loud to being on the edge of tears.

I'd highly recommend this if you're a fan of YA fantasy.

This was my first time in the Norse Mythology world! Lets just say it was absolutely amazing!!! The world was incredible, the sttory was a masterpiece and the characters were a joy to read. That ending was everything and i look forward to the series continuing!!!

“Odin's Child” is written by the Norwegian author Siri Petterson. Originally written in Norwegian and published in 2013, it has now been translated and the English version will be published in March 2021. It is the first book to the “Raven Rings” trilogy, a series that will no doubt be highly anticipated due to its unique blend of mythology, science fiction, folklore, and fantastical creatures.

“Odin's Child” is a novel that reimagines Norse mythology and offers a unique perspective of what it means to be different, to rebel against the higher orders, and to question the rules and beliefs that govern one’s society. It’s a powerful story that stands out amongst others inspired by mythology as it doesn’t follow a predictable arc of teenage angst with a single hero rising against the impossible. Instead, Petterson focuses on developing the world of Ym and its people so wholly to create an authentic and unforgettable story readers will easily be drawn into.

Hirka is fifteen and on the verge of womanhood, which means in a few months’ time she will participate in The Rite, a ritual all children coming of age must pass by demonstrating their ability in the Might. Though she has no tail and shows no sign of being able to wield The Might, Hirka is determined to prove she is no different than any other child of Ym. Her illusions are shattered when her father reveals a secret that will get her killed should anyone find out.

She is a child of Odin. Something not of this realm that is meant to be feared, hunted down, and destroyed.
Going through with The Rite may lead to her death, but to hide is to go against the council and put her life at risk. With this revelation, Hirka desires to know more about who she is and where she has come from, especially when it becomes clear staying in the realm of Ym is not safe. For as long as Hirka remains in Ym, the passageway between realms remains open and creatures are slipping through, attacking anyone on impulse.

As Hirka learns more about who she is, the Council governing Ym is falling apart, a rebellion is starting, and the lives of everyone are at stake.

This is a fascinating novel that takes mythology and fantasy to a whole other level with characters that are extremely likable and realistic. Hirka has similar characteristics to a lot of fifteen-year-olds. She’s adventurous, wild, outspoken, and unabashedly enters into playful—yet dangerous—duals with her friend Rime. And yet there’s a wisdom to her in the bravery, courage, determination, and resilience she demonstrates to friends and foes that speak to her maturity. Hirka is the kind of fiery young woman people are easily drawn to, especially Rime who is an incredible friend with battles of his own he must endure and fight against. Petterson’s characters have diverse voices and complex histories that add to the uniqueness of this story and its plot.

“Odin's Child” is thrilling, horrifying, and full of non-stop adventure. The long wait for a translation was worth it, and I hope it won’t be long before the second and third novels are translated. I cannot wait to continue the addictive journey this trilogy will bring.

Thank you to Netgalley and Arctis Books for providing me with a free e-arc of this novel for an honest review. Anticipate the release of “Odin's Child” on March 23rd, 2021 because this is the start of a series you don’t want to miss out on!

I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I'd be intrigued to see where the rest of the trilogy goes. It's always interesting to read translated works and I'm glad I picked this one up.

A young adult/teen fiction mythology story based around Hirka the tailless, Rime who is the strongest in Might, and Urd the villian. As the Rite comes near, Hirka discovers her true origins: she’s not from their world. When Hirka was a baby she was brought to their world through an ancient stone passage. As long as Hirka is in their world, the passage remains open. How will Hirka survive on her own? How she pass the Rite without any Might herself? Hirka must hide her secret from everyone. Rime is her best friend though and soon everyone’s secrets become hard to hide. Rime returned home to escort his grandmother back to the council but really he came to say goodbye to all he’s ever known....yet it’s a secret he has to protect.

This book sounded amazing. I think for me though, something was lost in translation. There weren’t any chapters and it was hard to follow. Some sections were full of detail while others just left you confused. The idea behind the story was great. I think others that don’t get hung up on writing style and like mythology will LOVE this story. Give it a try. The style wasn’t for me but the story line was great.

This is a YA fantasy story loosely based on Norse Mythology. The story combines fantasy with a young adult love story in the classic hero’s quest. The protagonist is Hirka, a fifteen-year-old girl who is different from everyone else she knows. She was born without a tail. As a baby she was left out in the snow and found and raised by a kind man. She faces the coming-of-age ritual all teens in the country face, but she is unable to bind, the critical requirement of the test. She runs away to avoid the test, and thus begins her adventures. Evil lurks everywhere as do challenges.

The world building is stupendous. The fantasy vocabulary is not so extensive that you need to speak Norwegian to “get” it. The characters are unique. An enjoyable read.