Valkyrie Rising

Viking Blood and Blade Saga, Book 5

By: Peter Gibbons

Narrated by: Paul Metcalfe

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

If you like Bernard Cornwell, Conn Iggulden, Simon Scarrow, and David Gemmell, you will love this Viking adventure saga packed with battles, vengeance, blood, and gore.

878 AD, Norway. The fight to secure Harald Fairhair’s throne is over, but one last battle sends a crew of Viking Warriors on a desperate, blood-soaked quest.

Hundr, a Northman with a dog's name...a crew of battle hardened warriors...and a voyage that will determine the fate of Ragnarok itself.

The crew of the warship Seaworm sail the Whale Road across Viking Europe in search of a spear said to have been forged for Odin himself. Ragnhild, Hundr’s sword-sister and Valkyrie Priestess, must recover the mythical weapon if she is to be restored to her order. The Burned Man stands in their way, a vicious warlord bent on vengeance who will stop at nothing to kill Hundr and his old friend Einar the Brawler.

Hundr must join the war for King Alfred’s nascent Kingdom of England and venture home, to the great city of Novgorod. Can he survive brutal attacks and vicious shield wall battles in this fast paced adventure with striking characters and bloodthirsty action?

Valkyrie Rising continues the unmissable Viking historical fiction saga series which began with award-winning author Peter Gibbons' debut novel Viking Blood and Blade.

©2023 Peter Gibbons (P)2023 Peter Gibbons

Disappointing

I feel that this story is rushed always going to a theme demonstrated throughout the other four. This may have been tolerable if not for the narrator. I’m am disappointed that one found him fine to rush to get this narrated I would have preferred a wait for a decent one if none had been available

narrator ruined the whole series for me.

I love the series, the narrator is almost arrogant in his refusal to pronounce norse words correctly though. seriously distracting.

Just ok

The story was not as good as the rest of the series, but it was ok. The narrator was pretty bad.

Not great

I liked this entire series but this is definitely the worst book of them. It’s a different narrator who is so bad it’s almost comical.

4 Unique Paragraphs with Rearranged Wording

Just horrible with a pointless plot and flat characters. Made worse with a lackluster narrator that has no “voices” but one for the characters.

Great book

It’s a good book. Love the story line. Only thing that I thought wasn’t as good was the narrator. Like the original better.

Not sure I can finish it.

The story is decent in keeping with the other books. Here in book 5 we change narrators. I find it hard to believe that a British man who can pronounce Worcestershire by ignoring half the syllables, butchers the Swedish words. The easiest thing to do would have been to Google pronunciations or potentially listen to the previous books to get a feel for the characters and to know how they should be said. It’s very distracting and every time the reader does this it breaks vision created created in listening. Perhaps it’s the producers fault. I can’t imagine that the writer doesn’t care how his book is presented.

Great story not so great reader

Loved the book, excellent addition to the series. Whyyy did they have to change to this new reader? His voices for the characters made them all sound drunk and slow and he constantly mispronounced names and words.

Worst of the 5, but still good

SPOILER: the first and third book were completely devoted to Hundir finding Love, but it escaped him. Again, 2 whole books! Then book 5 starts out with him in love…. No story about it. No background. Just he’s in love and she loves him back. A minor detail. Geez!!! Come on man! All of us are diehard Hundir fans and you start the book like it’s no big deal, he and Sigrid are in love?! Super disappointed in that.

Otherwise though still a great book. Narrator was fine, don’t understand the complaints about that. Just the story was the weakest of the 5 books so far. A great read but lacked the usual attention to detail the other books have.

Good book but…..

I really enjoy this series of books. I think they’re very well written. This one however I did not care for the narrator. He kept mispronouncing words and it was kind of bothering me.
The story however it was great the characters are awesome. I just preferred the guy that read the first few books.