A book club pick ;)

You might want to take my review with a grain of salt. I was reading this book in parallel with The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett, the third book of the Lymond Chronicles. For many books, it would be difficult to stand beside Lymond without looking like an unlucky party guest who didn’t get the message about the dress code.

Both the writing and the characters felt flat and simplistic. At times I kept reading with an angry impatience, “are we there yet?”. The two first person POV’s didn’t work imo, the voices were not distinct enough. For about a third of the book I kept thinking “I, I, I, who?”

Gormflaith is damaged, and I understand why. Still, her constant scheming and hatred were tiresome. I did like the emotional punch of the scene when she tells her son she loves him:
“ 'No, you don’t.' He laughed bitterly. 'You love that I love you. That’s different.' "

Fódla’s storyline was the most interesting one. She has to make horrible choices and I liked watching her grow.

The best part of the book was the setting. I don’t know much about 10th century Ireland (the only name I recognized was Olaf Tryggvason) so I had fun googling. Irish mythology is fascinating and the author combined it very well with the historical setting. There are also things to say about the role and oppression of women – yet the message was too blunt (not that I disagree).

I am not sure whether I’ll be reading the rest of the series…

P.S. If you want more Tuatha Dé Danann and their treasures in your life, may I suggest Spear by Nicola Griffith? ( )

This was another one of my series-sampling audio listens, to see if I might want to pursue it in print someday. The verdict: Yes, probably.

Audio Narration
The narrator is Aoife McMahon. She spoke with a lovely, mild Irish accent that worked perfectly for the story and I enjoyed listening to her.

The book alternates between two female POV characters. For the first couple of chapters, I was confused because the Irish names were difficult for me to understand, and all my American ears could hear from the narrator was “Irish accent”. At first I was confused as to whether the characters were the same or not. Then I realized the locations, dates, and character names were in the chapter titles, which I could see from the Audible player I was running on my computer, and the story started making much more sense with that visual information to rely on. I also started picking up the nuances of the voices the narrator was using for each character. Before long, I was easily hearing them as two obviously distinct characters. Aside from that initial difficulty, I didn’t have any trouble with her narration at all, and I easily kept the various characters straight.

Story
This is a fantasy story set in Ireland in the time of the Vikings when Christianity was starting to take over the old religions. In this setting, there are two factions of supernatural people, both of whom have lifetimes that are far longer than that of normal mortal humans and some magical abilities, but they can pass as humans and live among them without being detected. One of those factions has been nearly destroyed by the other and there are only two of them left. We alternate between the POVs of one character from each faction, Gormflaith and Fódla. Gormflaith is from the faction that has been nearly killed off. She’s very manipulative and opportunistic, trying to help her mortal son gain power and improve her own lot in life. Fódla is more compassionate, but she’s been taught to fear human men. She’s sent on a mission to spy on one of the more powerful kings.

I don’t know that this story necessarily has a strong plot, it’s mostly just a bunch of human factions vying for power, but I liked it anyway. Gormflaith was a difficult character to like, but her manipulative maneuvering held my interest and I kind of felt sorry for her at times. I liked Fódla quite a lot and I enjoyed her chapters the best. I liked that there aren’t clear-cut good vs evil sides, although there are definitely individuals with purer motives than others. There’s a pretty strong theme of women being powerless and at the mercy of men’s whims, but I didn’t think it was as heavy-handed as what I’ve sometimes encountered in other books and it fit the setting well enough.

There isn’t any sort of closure to this book. It doesn’t end on a major cliff hanger, but it felt to me like a slow and meandering story that was cut off when a certain number of pages was reached. Maybe if/when I read the rest of the series, the reason for stopping where it did will seem more obvious to me. I did enjoy this though, enough that I intend to seek it out and read it in print someday when the series is complete. ( )

The Children of Gods and Fighting Men is the story of two women. Gormflaith is a Formorian, one of the ancient Irish immortal races and one of the last of her kind, hunted by the Tuatha de Danann, but disguised as the Queen of Dublin. Fodla is one of the Descendants, a healer of the Tuatha de Danann, who is charged with spying on King Brian Boru.
Ms. Lawless has written a wonderful story using Irish history and myth. It's a great introduction to the life of Brian Boru and a tumultuous era in Ireland where Vikings and Irish fought, Christianity and old religions vied for favor, and the events leading up to the battle of Clontarf. I can't wait for the next book in the series, and I highly recommend reading this excellent retelling of Irish history. ( )