A review by notoriousesr
First Comes Summer by Maria Hesselager

challenging tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

 Folkvi, a shaman in her small Viking settlement, loves her brother, Aslakr. No she really, REALLY loves her brother. So when he returns from an expedition betrothed to Gerd, she takes matters into her own hands.

Yeah, let’s get it out of the way. It’s incest. This is an incest book. We all know that going in. Anyway, as far as incest plotlines go, this one is pretty tame until the end, where there’s a “shocking twist.” However, I think that this would’ve benefitted from a restructure. First Comes Summer jumps around so much temporally that by the time I figured out when each thing was happening, the tension of the main narrative felt pretty slack. Hesselager made it harder on herself to keep the stakes high when we’re jumping from summer to winter to childhood to 20 years later BACK to summer, etc. etc. The prose is pretty good, and I like Aitken’s translation work in general, but it just felt kind of slow and rambling, especially for something that SHOULD have a propulsive narrative. Overall, 2.5 out of 5 flasks of mystery shaman liquid.