Austin Wyrd (Valhalla AWOL #1)

I hate to give a bad review, but in this case I have to.

I barely made it to 4% of the book before returning it for a refund, for a variety of reasons.

1) The punctuation is all over the place, sometimes places where there really should be a comma are missing, sometimes there are long sentences in need of more than a comma for a break.

2) the wording is really odd, its fine (actually its great) to have the main character refer to the cops as the constabulary, but in a few sentences they changed term several times. If you are going to pick a stylistic choice for the MC, stick to it.

3) Keep the characters and world-building consistent. The chracter doesnt need to change from a man of few words to mentally commenting on everything, if you want to give overly detailed descriptions thats fine (we got a whole paragraph on what the old cops eyes said) but stay consistent, dont blow past stuff with minimal detail just to bog down in telling us the same thing in 3 different ways.

The story was shaping up to be decent, the main character had a secret, it started with a murder and the world wasnt bad. But after a handful of pages I was already skipping around on the page, and thats what usually happens when ive been reading for several hours and my eyes need a break.

I read a lot of fiction, and ive read a lot of boring writing to get a half-decent story, I couldnt finish this one.

I really enjoyed this read. The pace is well handled, never growing too slow or stagnant and always ensuring the reader is able to hang on for the ride. The magic elements and mythology are refreshingly rare compared to those one would expect to find in an urban fantasy, steering well clear of standard tropes. Combine that with my being a sucker for a good mystery, and the opening chapter was all it took for me to get stuck in. And the intrigue just continues to build right through to the ending chapters.

The only thing that dragged this down for me was the first person POV. I have always struggled with it as a reader. But that is clearly a matter of personal taste and does not reflect the author’s ability to write in this perspective. Quite the contrary, in fact. He is one of the best first person perspective authors I’ve read in many years.

I highly recommend this book to all those who love magic, mystery, humor and grit in a read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! So much so that I couldnt wait to get back into it. If you enjoy mythical fantasies, murder mysteries, with a historical twist you will enjoy this book! I have to say usually in most murder mysteries magical or not….you can figure out or have an idea of the ending. However, this one will leave you hanging because you can bet you will have it all wrong on who did it even close to the end! Will be awaiting the next one!

I am struggling to finish this, not sure how someone could make Norse boring but this author did. Some bad typos, but those I can deal with, bad writing is a different matter though. I skimmed thru the last fifth of the book just to finish it.
EDIT: I am going to upgrade from one star to two stars just because of some of the decent use of folklore and runes.

The character depth is very good & there is nothing really wasted on the spare characters in the way of extraneous details.

I kinda kept waiting for the main character to go Super Saiyan & ruin it, but he never did & that was amazingly wonderful! I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who can read.

I want to give more info, but I am afraid to spoil it, so throw down some money for this book & be happily entertained!

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