As a teenager, I read some of the original Emily Windsnap books (most memorable being Castle in the Mist, I adored that book), so having the chance to read an ARC of Valley of the Vikings filled me with absolute joy. It's been a few years, so I remembered the main cast - Emily, Shona, Aaron. Not sure if I remember Mandy or if she was in a later book, it's been over a decade!

As I understand it, this is a capstone to the original series, featuring a more mature Emily than I remember, in her endeavours to save the world from an underwater volcano that would essentially wipe out civilisation as we know it. Her main antagonist is, once again, King Neptune, and I very much enjoyed seeing Emily's view of him change from one of fear to one of disgust. There's an underlying current (ha) to this book of growing up and learning to think critically of authority figures, which is important to the youth of today. There is also a very strong anti-war message to this novel, which I whole-heartedly appreciate. It is shown very clearly as something caused by the greed of men who think that they are more powerful than they actually are, and the sheer devastation it causes to people. Emily's entire speech towards the end of the book gave me absolute chills.

In terms of the characters, I feel like you'd have to have read the original series to know what they're like because in this novel they felt a little...flat? Of the four child protagonists, they all speak the same way and I noticed that there is very little in the way of physicality to SHOW their character. In fact, of all the characters in the book, the most interesting were Mr Beeston and Millie - everyone else just struck me as very bland this time around. Actually, Rolf was a strong contender for my favourite side character in this book - he had a very different take on optimism to the others, and I appreciated the different ways in which the group of characters he is involved in were reacting to the story.

It's been a hot while since I read the earlier books, and it was interesting to me that Emily and Aaron had broken up but remained friends. I really liked this, as it showed a maturity to them both as people, however this was undermined by the odd comment from Emily that drew attention to it, particularly one moment at the end about them holding hands. I do, on the one hand, understand why it would cross her mind and to be fair, it really is only mentioned once or twice. On the other, I don't know why it needed bring up again at the very end of the book?

Speaking of characters, let's talk about THOR. The fact that he and Neptune are from completely different mythologies is not addressed even once, which I find hilarious and actually kind of love. I also loved the little cameo of Loki and actually had to put the book down for a moment because I got so excited seeing their name. I obviously understand why Thor is only in the last third or so of the book, however it might have been nice to see him earlier on, if only in a flashback.

This was a quick read, relatively simple to follow, and a nice end point for anyone who was a fan of the Emily Windsnap books as a child/teenager, or for any child currently reading them!

Tl;dr: Quick read, strong messages, characters felt a little flat for most of the book, would still recommend for fans new and old. 4 stars.