kirkw1972's review against another edition
4.0
Another day another book read in less than 24 hours. This is a really fast paced Viking murder mystery that kept me turning the pages right to the very end.
There are a lot of characters in the story and to start with I did have to keep going back and checking who was married to who but that seemed to settle down once the first murder kicked in. Having said that the author did manage to give each one their own personality certainly with the brothers and sisters in Unnthor's brood. I hope the follow up will start to unravel who Helga is, where she came from and what happened to her family. There's definitely a mystery there that needs solving.
I liked Helga, she was quite a well rounded character, intelligent and I liked the ways she tried to unravel the murders in the book. There's little of my imagined Vikings here, it's truly a crime story set in Viking times with everyone either too old now to go pillaging or engaged in farming and trading and I think that gave it a nice touch.
Overall I really enjoyed this and looking forward to the next one
Free arc from netgalley
There are a lot of characters in the story and to start with I did have to keep going back and checking who was married to who but that seemed to settle down once the first murder kicked in. Having said that the author did manage to give each one their own personality certainly with the brothers and sisters in Unnthor's brood. I hope the follow up will start to unravel who Helga is, where she came from and what happened to her family. There's definitely a mystery there that needs solving.
I liked Helga, she was quite a well rounded character, intelligent and I liked the ways she tried to unravel the murders in the book. There's little of my imagined Vikings here, it's truly a crime story set in Viking times with everyone either too old now to go pillaging or engaged in farming and trading and I think that gave it a nice touch.
Overall I really enjoyed this and looking forward to the next one
Free arc from netgalley
costa_steinunn's review against another edition
4.0
Helga Finnsdottir is grown with her adoptive family in East Norway in 970 c., but when the whole family gathers in the father house and Helga meets for the first time her adoptive sibling, she realizes that she doesn't actually know her own family, that some secrets divide it. That was supposed to be a feast that turns into a nightmare. Dissent and hints worm among the siblings. The legend of a hoard brought by the father from his journeys but never found lingers together with the murder of two of the brothers. In spite of herself, Helga is forced to doubt her certainties to find the murderer, and this brings her to understand that the farm where she's grown it's no more her home. She needed to find her place in the world.
"Kin" is to me that kind of story come by chance and you like not knowing why. I'm not fond of mystery, though this caught me, probably because the setting is an age I love to study, because of its characters and their relationships, because as I read it seemed to hold in my hand a real Saga of Icelanders, with its simple but not banal and evocative style.
I liked the social representation. For once, in a book set in the Viking Age, the Viking warriors, the violence of the weapons and the blood are not leading. Violence, of course, isn't absent, but it's the subtle one, the sneaky violence of manipulation.
"Kin" is to me that kind of story come by chance and you like not knowing why. I'm not fond of mystery, though this caught me, probably because the setting is an age I love to study, because of its characters and their relationships, because as I read it seemed to hold in my hand a real Saga of Icelanders, with its simple but not banal and evocative style.
I liked the social representation. For once, in a book set in the Viking Age, the Viking warriors, the violence of the weapons and the blood are not leading. Violence, of course, isn't absent, but it's the subtle one, the sneaky violence of manipulation.
adxthx's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
pip94's review against another edition
3.0
*I received a digital copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
3.5 This is a mystery/ crime story featuring Vikings and a dysfunctional family. I thought the author did a great job at creating a rather sinister atmosphere and the pacing was well done. The plot was compelling, the writing is good and the characters are well written. If you enjoy a good crime story and/or Vikings then I would recommend checking this out.
3.5 This is a mystery/ crime story featuring Vikings and a dysfunctional family. I thought the author did a great job at creating a rather sinister atmosphere and the pacing was well done. The plot was compelling, the writing is good and the characters are well written. If you enjoy a good crime story and/or Vikings then I would recommend checking this out.
riverwise's review against another edition
4.0
A departure for Snorri Kristjansson here. Well, not that much of a departure - this is still very much about Vikings, but it has quite a different feel from the Swords Of Good Men books. There are no epic voyages (in fact, the whole thing takes place on one farmstead), and no magic or Norse Gods (weeeeeelll, almost no Norse Gods...). The main attraction for me was the evocation of domestic life in Viking times, which was convincing and interesting, with the push and pull of honour and hearth. At heart though this is a crime novel, a murder mystery where family tensions spill over into bloodshed. It's every Christmas Day dinner argument you've ever had turned up to eleven. With knives. A good read, and with a second book already promised, this could be a series to look out for,
pagesforages's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Sexual harassment and Sexual content
kea_n's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
tien's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed the writing and this setting. And while I do like the protagonist, Helga, I had a hard time pinning her age... Half the time, she's supposedly a child, but the other half, she's not and she definitely does not think like a child. So maybe she is on the verge of womanhood and a very clever one at that.
It was a bit of a slow start or a very long set up but it did make a very good build up to the time when crime was committed. And once that happened, everything tumbled down like dominoes. The pace picked up and did not slow right up to the end. However, I'm still not sure about the ending... The who and why are still a bit muddled for me.
It was a bit of a slow start or a very long set up but it did make a very good build up to the time when crime was committed. And once that happened, everything tumbled down like dominoes. The pace picked up and did not slow right up to the end. However, I'm still not sure about the ending... The who and why are still a bit muddled for me.
raven88's review against another edition
2.0
I will tarry a wee bit longer in Iceland with Kin by Snorri Kristjansson, the first of the Helga Finnsdottir mystery series, and what holds the unique position of being the first Viking murder mystery, apart from the great sagas themselves, that I have read. I thoroughly enjoy Kristjansson’s normal historical fare having read all three of his Valhalla series, but I had a curious reading experience with this one. At first, I didn’t feel that the opening of the book really reflected the time period it is set in, and this just felt like a small rural community on the cusp of some forthcoming upset. It was only as the family members began to arrive that I felt Kristjansson really settled us in to the timeline, exemplified by the sons’ tales of plundering and fighting. I also felt like it took an absolute age for the actual ‘crime’ to happen, as the story packed to the gills with all the necessary conflict, jealousies and infidelities essential to an Icelandic soap opera, which eventually results in murder. I was rather enjoying this mash up of the Icelandic sagas, Shakespearean treachery, and Viking ‘It’s A Knockout’ , when it was punctuated by a rather unexciting, but completely predictable murder, and then another, which led to young Helga ‘Nancy Drew’ Finnsdottir becoming a rather unconvincing super sleuth. So a thumbs up from me for the familial conflict, and the generally entertaining conniving women and wonderfully Neanderthal male characters, but as a murder mystery in a conventional sense I felt it was a little loose fitting and awkward, and less than convincing overall. Shame.
riverwise's review against another edition
4.0
A departure for Snorri Kristjansson here. Well, not that much of a departure - this is still very much about Vikings, but it has quite a different feel from the Swords Of Good Men books. There are no epic voyages (in fact, the whole thing takes place on one farmstead), and no magic or Norse Gods (weeeeeelll, almost no Norse Gods...). The main attraction for me was the evocation of domestic life in Viking times, which was convincing and interesting, with the push and pull of honour and hearth. At heart though this is a crime novel, a murder mystery where family tensions spill over into bloodshed. It's every Christmas Day dinner argument you've ever had turned up to eleven. With knives. A good read, and with a second book already promised, this could be a series to look out for,