Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
First Comes Summer  By  cover art

First Comes Summer

By: Maria Hesselager, Martin Aitken - translator
Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The spellbinding story of a young woman’s dangerous passion as it plays out over the course of an eerie summer

In their remote Viking settlement, Folkví and her brother, Áslakr, have always been close—unnaturally close. They’ve grown more intimate still as Folkví learns her shaman mother’s craft, as men regard her with newly devouring eyes. Then illness carries off their parents, and the nest of home is shattered. Áslakr sets off on his first expedition, abandoning Folkví to the dark of an endless winter. When he returns, he’s done the unthinkable: He’s found someone else to love.

Sick with grief, Folkví rages to the gods where they sit at the foot of an ancient tree, contemplating the twisted passions of humans that play out in the face of an ever-approaching end of days. Will none of them save her now? Very well, Folkví will save herself. The wedding date is set. But first comes a fateful summer. . .

Deeply unsettling and brilliantly imagined, First Comes Summer captures the terror of losing the world you’ve always known—and the uncanny extremes to which you might go to hold on to it.

©2023 Maria Hesselager (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“[A] sparse and spellbinding novel. . . . Hesselager’s deft writing throughout this mysterious story continuously unsettles in the best way possible, prompting readers to lean in even as things spiral out of control.” Chicago Review of Books

“Poetic, enigmatic. . . . [and] remarkable. . . . It is mysterious and utterly compelling.” —Center for Fiction

“A magical book about love and death and the slender, enduring line that connects the two.”Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

What listeners say about First Comes Summer

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Eh

It was okay, not much happened, at least what did happen didn’t really shock or fill me with any feeling other than “okay”…
I actually feel like the book is probably good in it’s native language, but it seems to lose pretty much all feeling in English translation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!