I loved this book!! It had all of the elements of a great story and it was a beautifully written and enjoyable read - I couldn’t put it down.

We are immediately thrown into a catastrophic event that forever changes the life of our heroine, Fryda. She is left with a maimed hand and her dreams of becoming a shield maiden seem impossible….or are they? The character of Freyda is wonderfully written - she has incredible strength, but physical weakness. She has intelligence and awareness, an empathy and compassion for others, but is also incredibly naive when it comes to the motives and nature of one of the people closest to her - her twin brother Wiglaf. Emmerichs did an amazing job with Wiglaf, I was racing through pages to find out exactly how vile he could be.

I didn’t realize this was marketed as a YA novel - it didn’t read young to me except for the fact that the violence and gore generally accompanying a story surrounding vikings was kept fairly PG. The love story is also chaste, though very very sweet. How couldn’t you root for Theow?!

There was just enough mystery to keep pushing the story forward without dragging things out and enough heartwrenching goodbyes to make a lump form in my throat.

I loved that Beowulf was a side character and the narrative focused primarily on Fryda and her character arc. There’s much more to say, but in an effort to not reveal any spoilers, I’ll just say go read the book now - it’s great!!

A big thank you to @netgalley and @redhookbooks for the ARC ebook in return for my honest review.

3.75 stars.

This is a fantasy and historical story loosely based and a retelling of Beowulf. Personally, I hadn't read that beforehand/knew the story, so I went in blind on that front and cannot draw comparisons between the two.

This story follows Fryda, a chieftain's daughter in the period of the late 900 CE to early 1000 CE. All she wants is to become a shield maiden, but a horrible accident causes makes it near impossible to reach her dream. However, she begins to feel a strange power growing inside her. Her father, Weohstan hosts the King Beowulf and other leaders to his village to feast and celebrate. During this time, Fryda learns of a conspiracy and has to do what she can to protect her people. Based on what I know of the time, I do think it's pretty accurate historically, the author did a great job of implementing this! I do see a lot of people saying the book is YA, personally I think it goes more into the adult range due to the language, gore, maturity, and sexual content.

There are a LOT of POVs in this book, especially at the beginning. I counted seven, where we have the main character, Fryda, and the slave Theow. There are also perspectives from the dragon, indentured servant Hild, the blacksmith Bryce, King Beowulf, and Fryda's brother Wiglaf. These tend to taper off as we get further in the book, mostly focusing on our main characters Theow and Fryda. I do think they are helpful to gaining information about the world and relationships, but it's just a lot in the beginning to switch back and forth and get your bearings. It is also very slow paced in the beginning, but once we get to some action, the plot jumps forward and things start happening with a purpose.

I thought Fryda was wonderfully developed. We see her struggle with her disability, but gaining confidence over time. A lot of attention is drawn to how she hides her hand from others at the start, especially around Theow. She cares very much about the staff of slaves and servants in her household, but she is quite naive (a little too much to be believable) about the poor treatment of them and always seems shocked when she learns about her brother's misdeeds and when a servant is treated horribly. Towards the end, Fryda gains agency and control of her life and decisions. I really enjoyed the romance in this novel as well between Fryda and Theow. It is forbidden and it's cute to see the little connections between them.

I really enjoyed this book once the action and plot took off! There were battles and a dragon fight and it was thoroughly entertaining and kept me engaged. I just felt the novel started off very weak. Overall, I do recommend this if you are looking to read a fantasy novel in this time period.

I love a good retelling so I was excited to come across this feminist retelling of Beowulf. Shield Maiden follows the story of Fryda, Beowulf’s niece, a princess who dreams of becoming a shield maiden. There are many things to enjoy about this book. Emmerich’s prose is lovely, and the book seems very well researched. You can tell there is a lot of talent behind it. I really enjoyed Fryda as a character and was rooting for her. She reads like a realistic young girl who has dreams and has had challenges. The main drawback to the book is it can often feel muddled, at some points it doesn’t seem like it has a clear direction and pieces of story seem like they are missing or added without any pretense. Despite some flaws I do think the right audience would really enjoy this and I’m curious to see what Emmerich will do in the future.

ARC provided by NetGalley.