A Flame in the North

• Author: Lilith Saintcrow
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: February 13, 2024
• Publisher: Orbit
• Series: Black Land’s Bane #1 

Thank you to Orbit and Angela Man for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

From New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow comes a thrilling Norse-inspired epic fantasy of ancient myth and magical destiny.

THE BLACK LAND IS A MYTH: Centuries have passed since that Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, people in the South still light ritual bonfires to banish the dark. 

In her village, this duty falls to Solveig, a girl favored by the gods with powerful fire magic. But when her brother kills a Northern lord’s son during the ritual, it is Sol who faces punishment, by being weregild—part hostage, part guest—in the North for a year and a day.

As she journeys to her captivity, Sol starts to realize that the Black Land is no myth. The forest teem with foul beasts. Her travel companions are not what they seem, and their plans for her magic are shrouded in secrecy. 

With only her loyal shieldmaiden and her own wits to rely upon, Sol must learn to master her powers and wrest control of her fate. For the Black Land’s army stirs, ready to cover the world in darkness—unless Sol can find the courage to stop it.

As someone who has been very interested in Norse culture and history, this book sounded as though it was written for me. I was really intrigued by the premise and the blurb had me sold on it. When it arrived, my schedule couldn’t clear up fast enough for me to read this.

One of the first things that I noticed, caught my attention in the first sentence and made me feel like this was a read that I was going to enjoy. There’s a lot of terms in Old Norse that are used, as well as words that reference events or situations or cultural knowledge, but wouldn’t necessarily have meaning to people that aren’t familiar with Norse history and culture. Some of them could be figured out through context, but I was surprised that there wasn’t a glossary included to define all of these terms, especially since they played such a central part in the story. 

For example, when Solveig starts discussing how she is a volva and uses seidhr, or even mentions the Althing, these terms are all things that I can define easily. But I would guess that most people wouldn’t be able to rattle these off at the drop of a hat, knowing that a volva is a female shaman in Norse practices, trained in some forms of Norse magic, called seidhr. And the Althing was a yearly gathering of the entire nation, where rites were performed and issues could be addressed peacefully. 

Solveig’s character is an interesting one. While I’m used to reading books about characters who are eager to get out of their village/town/city and explore the world, Solveig is more than happy to stay put where she is, and doesn’t seem to have a desire to explore the world. But she’s forced to travel out of duty to her family after her brother kills the son of a Northern Lord. As weregild, she’s bound by duty to stay with her “hosts” for a year and a day, so she’s sort of a hostage, but with the privileges of a guest. I found her shieldmaiden Arn to be one of my favorite characters. She’s tough, protective, and fierce, yet also wise, loyal, and sweet, and surprisingly funny. 

It isn’t very long into the journey that Sol realizes things aren’t quite what they seem. This is where the fantasy elements came into play, and I wish they were explored better. I would have liked to learn more about how these elements, and also how the seidhr worked, but it doesn’t really get into it in very much depth. 

I will say that Saintcrow can write a great battle scene. They practically jump off the page, with vivid writing and descriptive writing that made me feel the chill of the winter snows (even though it is neither snowing nor cold where I am). There are multiple battle scenes throughout the book, and it kept things interesting. I’m always a sucker for a good battle scene, and that increases for a book with many scenes. 

However, the storyline felt very formulaic to me, with traveling and battles occurring at what seemed like regular intervals. It became almost predictable, and I actually took a break in the middle and had to push myself to come back to this, if only to see what was going to happen. But for me, the plot never really developed that peak “oomph” moment that took this over the top into a memorable read. 

Ultimately, this was a mixed bag type of read for me. Saintcrow builds an interesting world here, with a wonderful main character and side character, but I kept getting her male characters confused with each other. The plot felt much more like a setup for the second book, rather than having a single plot for this book in combination with an overarching plot that runs through the series as well. But since this one seemed like it was all building up to something more, I’m willing to give the next book a shot. And since I received an audiobook ARC as well, Saskia Maarleveld did a fantastic job with the narration, and I can confidently say that the audio and physical versions of the book are good, although the audio version can be helpful with pronouncing the unfamiliar terms.

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