I'll be honest and say that I was not at all sure what I was getting into with this one. I was surprised to see that a book on Catan was a historical fiction/fantasy title, and I knew that I just had to see what that would entail. Catan was an enjoyable read, and it's clear that Teuber has done his research on the time period he is writing about. Though as someone who is not as much of a historical fiction buff, I felt as though this was not quite the title for me and that some of the accuracy came at the expense of story.
When tying into such a massively well known and received IP, it can be difficult to figure out just where something like this lands in terms of the existing fanbase. Fans of the game may bounce of this one, but at the same time it feels like it will appeal to those historical fiction/fantasy lovers who are not familiar with the game.

I have never read anything by this author, but I will be looking out for other books they write in the future. I really enjoyed the story as well as the pacing of the story.

When Thorolf and Asla elope, they are punished with banishment, along with Thorolf’s two half-brothers, and they set sail for the island of Catan. This book was written incredibly wordy and slow. There was so much telling and barely any showing. There were a lot of unnecessary details and characters, instead of focusing on the important details of the book, and the characters were not developed well at all. The sexism (talk of rape, slavery, etc.) was akin to Game of Thrones, and not in a complimentary way. I wanted to enjoy this book because my husband loves the game, but I just couldn’t stomach this book enough to finish it.

Really wanted to like this book. It had lots of nice details of the Viking world but I found it hard to follow because the perspective changed so frequently. It was also tell us about so many characters that it was hard to connect with any of them.

As such a huge fan of the board game and having made up narratives of my own that go with the game, i was thrilled to see this written and it was so much fun to read. Highly recommend, whether you've played Catan and know anything about it or not!

Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Well, this is a super fun read! I love Settlers of Catan, so as soon as I saw this title available, I needed to make it my own. It does a great job of following the general play of the game while also weaving a unique story with original characters that actually have depth and complicated inner lives. That's impressive!