Book Review: Between the Blade and the Heart by Amanda Hocking

Between the Blade and the Heart

Author: Amanda Hocking

Publisher: Pan MacMillan Australia

Release date: 02/01/2018

Pages: 392 pages

R.R.P: $14.99

                                        

 

Malin is a Valkrie-in-training. It's her responsibility to slay immortals returning them to the afterlife to maintain balance in the world. She also struggles to maintain balance in her own life- between her duties as a Valkrie and her conflicting feelings for her ex-girlfriend. 

But when a beguiling stranger breaks into her home on a quest for vengeance, Malin's life becomes even more complicated. Asher is hunting the rogue immortal who murdered his mother, and he thinks Malin may have information. Her loyalties are tested as she uncovers a betrayal that unravels everything she thought she knew. And she must decide if helping the mysterious Asher get his revenge is worth the risk- to the world, and to her heart.

My review

Thoughts on the book:                  May contain spoilers

Between the Blade and the Heart is the first book in bestselling author Amanda Hocking's new Valkyrie series. Malin is our new heroine and is training to be a Valkyrie, someone who slays immortals when their number is up and sends them onto the afterlife. Not just anyone can be a Valkyrie, they are born into their abilities and only females can become Valkyrie, sons get the strength and height but none of the supernatural ability to slay immortals. Malin is left a bit blind sighted when someone breaks into her apartment because they think that she has killed their mother. But the attacker, Asher, soon learns that it wasn't Malin that he was looking for but her mother. The thing is Asher's mother was also a Valkyrie so why would Malin's mother kill a fellow Valkyrie. Discussing it with her mother Malin learns that her mother didn't kill one of the immortals that she had been charged with killing because she thought they were a decent being and was actually making a large difference in the world. But not killing these immortals who's time is up but the balance of the world in jeopardy. What happens next seems to have a snowball affect and suddenly nothing is making sense anymore and everything that they believed in is put into question. Will Malin, Asher and their small group of allies be able to save the world and bring it back into balance or will evil have the chance to take over the world?

Massive thank you to Hannah from Pan MacMillan Australia for sending me out a copy of Between the Blade and the Heart for review after I begged for a copy. Amanda Hocking would have to be one of my newly favourite authors that I discovered after being a part of the Crystal Kingdom blog tour. I devoured each of these books and then devoured Freeks just as quickly despite it being completely different. So when I heard that Amanda was releasing a new book I knew I just had to have it. You should have heard my squeal when I finally recieved it. Unfortunately that was about the only highlight for me. I delved in like a fat kid seeing chocolate cake and vigour silly starting reading but I just couldn't get into it. I did preserver and finish the book but it proberly took me a good two and a half weeks to do. I just kept putting it down because it was frustrating me that I didn't like it as much as I was expecting to and the thing is I can't really tell you why. The characters were well written and had so much going for them and the storyline was fairly easy to follow but I think it was also a bit slow compared to her other books. The action for me didn't really happen until right near the end and all that came before it was a lot of back history and build up to this moment that I think it just didn't need. However the last few chapters did get me hooked and I am waiting for book 2 to come out (which is a shorter wait time than normal) so I can find out what happens next as its a bit of a cliffhanger ending. Hopefully book 2 will offer a lot more and this will just be a once off.

Rating: 3/5