This novel seems to be the third in a series. However, a lot of detail -- tiresomely and more than necessary -- is given about the previous novels. Warning: Spoilers ahead.

It is a trend within historical romance novels to give their heroines an independence and a way of thinking that is so at odds with the spirit of their times as to be often anachronistic.

This is so prevalent within historical romance novels that 'trend' seems to be a misnomer. It is more a trope, a cliche, a given, even.

Our heroine establishes herself quickly as one of these heroines. This is evident in many ways later in the novel but the immediate symbol is in her attire when we are first introduced to Her Feistiness: boy's clothing. Cross-dressing as a boy is another device that often appears within historical romances. We find that our heroine is on the run: escaping the oppressions of her abusive patriarchal household of course. In order to do this, she must cross-dress: reject her feminine self and play at being a man ineffectively. It is a ruse that is easily seen through. As much as she would want to, a woman cannot masquerade as a man.

Our heroine is also familiar with swordplay and she loves horses. She rides horses better than any man (with the exception of our alpha hero.). In keeping with female empowerment, this and her other qualities of which an example is "courage", win the admiration of our hero and -- later, in a memorable symbolic scene -- his people. She is also crappy at housework. This is meaningfully remedied later, at the same time she comes to terms with her desire for our hero and herself as a woman.

The hero himself is ridiculously perfect. He rides horses better than her, for one. His riding horses better than her is not enough to sufficiently elevate his status above our heroine. He impressively is the best at riding horses while hating doing it. He hates riding horses because he is afraid of heights. Of course, this "fear" does not stop our alpha hero from scaling a cliff to rescue our heroine. Why let a little thing like fear of heights stop him doing that?

Now why did our not-so-empowered-after-all heroine end up at the bottom of a cliff? (A fall she somehow survived with a bruise or two that took her all of a day or so to recover from.)

Get this: She was so focused, so intent, on escaping the evil patriarchy that she ran herself off the cliff.

Ladies and gentlemen, she ran off a cliff. She didn't notice it there.

Now it gets more ridiculous:
Who was she running from?
Our alpha hero.
Why was he chasing her?
In his words: "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. Noone's going to hurt you. I'll see you safely to wherever you're going and -- " Despite this, he still gets kicked in the nuts. She also knew he was telling the truth, because she has a magic power.This magic power makes her able to tell when people tell the truth. She's empowered, she literally has a magic power, okay? Isn't that what 'empowered woman' means?

So she knew there was little chance of harm occuring and she ran off a cliff anyway. Why did she do this? This is the best explanation she has to offer: "Surrender is for the craven and the meek."

That a blatant, irrational mistrust and fear of Men/The Patriarchy/the Y chromosome leads a woman to literally run herself off a cliff is a beautiful analogy for the mess a radical feminist might purposelessly make of her own psyche.

The conflict between our heroine's desire for complete freedom and her desire for our hero dominate the emotional drive behind the novel. Of course, this is a romance novel and she must resolve it, understanding that complete freedom is in surrendering to what she actually wants: the hero.

Of her own free will, the heroine loses her virginity to the hero (who -- for the record -- resisted mightily and really wanted her to stay a virgin. But what can you do if a determined naked woman assaults you in your sleep, literally impaling herself upon you when inevitably aroused? Cry rape, maybe?). Ironically, no less than the threat of death persuaded her to actually marry the same man upon discovery of the fact that he's foreign [Norse to her prissy Saxon] and, in fact, the actual betrothed she was supposed to wed. Silly truthteller! He's perfect, you stupid bint! As the hero himself points out on at least one occasion, she has very little common sense.

Beautiful symbolism in this, again. What she is running away from proved to be what she actually wants.

That brings us back to just how boringly perfect our hero is:
Greatest living warrior in all the land? Check.
Perfect figure? Check. (This is in fact the reason our heroine raped him; she espied his perfect figure and was unable to contain her misandrist sexual objectifying lust).
Takes charge and takes no bull, recognising bull without the advantage of truthtelling powers, while our heroine has trouble even with them)? Check.
Indescribably wealthy? Check.
Loves women and reasonably gentle to them? Check.
Endless experience with aforementioned women? Check.
Never Felt This Way Before with our heroine, despite these women? Check.
Universally (almost) loved by his people? Check.
Manages to be perfect despite, as a child, being a helpless orphan with a lone brother to protect him? Check.

Aside from the troubles suspending disbelief, he's boring in some ways. He could have used some depth and room for development. His one unique quality is being 'skald-souled' [a reference to skaldic poetry], fascinated with stories and legends. This novel does have some fun historical and mythical references. It's not clear what time period this was set -- no dates -- except that what could be called Anglo-Saxon territory was raided by Danes and there's a King Alfred forming an alliance with the Norse. There's also a place called Mercia in existence which according to wikipedia sets the time period at somewhere between 527 to 919 AD.

I like Ms Litton's voice which has sparkling description and charged, believable dialogue bringing her characters to a life they shouldn't have had. She does cross into modern lingo a bit much, maybe e.g. why is a Norse dude going 'what the hell' in his mind? He doesn't believe in hell per se, does he?

I really loved how our hero treated our heroine overall and the way they develop. I see potential in the voice: I believe this is probably not the author's best and she could do better with different material.

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