Review: Icefall

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I took this book without knowing much what was about, I just liked the YA cover.
Then I started to read it and got positively surpriserd by the story. It is about a nordic princess that describes herself to be plain and never was the interest of the king because of her lack of extreme beauty (I refuse to believe that she was ugly) and her birth place (she was the second girl and they needed a male to inherit the crown).
So Solveig is sent with her siblings, maid and five keepers to a cave before winter while their father fight against an enemy. Icefall tells the domestic story of how is life in there and how Solveig manages to be one of a kind despite being considered close to nothing.
I really liked the story because 1) Solveig is a good character that tries to find herself among the circumstances: brave, kind, helping, responsible, witty, resourceful and knowledgeable 2) Solveig has no romantic interest during the story! 3) She becomes a skrul, a kind of bard that by night and around the fire, retells the stories of the gods, Nordic Gods, which I adore 4) the Berserker is an amazing character. 5) the writing is so fluid that you just keep going and going without realizing that you have reach the end of it.
It was a different book, truly, from what I have been reading and quite refreshing I must admit. I found it particularly interesting for the fanfic I am writing because I learnt much about Nordic society.

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